VLADIMIR Putin has fired a terrifying wave of hypersonic missiles on Ukraine in a chilling revenge strike.
The attack targeted civilian areas in the capital Kyiv with deadly destruction also left across multiple districts.
The attack was made up of lethal air-launched Kinzhal, or Dagger, hypersonic missiles and Iskander/KN-23 ballistic missiles.
It was seen as Putin’s revenge for the assassination of the dictator’s top nuclear defence general in Moscow on Tuesday.
Kyiv was left severely damaged due to the missile blasts with harrowing pictures showing tower blocks in the capital up in smoke.
Intense fires can be seen burning inside residential blocks with firefighters desperately battling to put out the flames.
Fears rapidly grew over people being trapped inside the ablaze block.
In the Holosiivskyi district of Kyiv a staggering 630 residential buildings were targeted and left without power, say Ukrainian officials.
Another 16 hospitals, 17 schools and 13 kindergartens were also left without heat due to the Russian assault blasting a main heating pipeline, according to mayor Vitaliy Klitschko.
In total 60,000 Ukrainians were plunged into the freezing cold as electricity supplies failed after the attack.
In the nearby Shevchenkivsky district, rescue teams were sent out on recovery missions to try and search for people in the rubble of a public building.
A warehouse was also destroyed by an Iranian-made drone near the city’s Boryspil airport.
In Kharkiv an Iskander-M missile strike destroyed 12 private homes, a postal facility, and outbuildings.
Brave Ukraine air defences managed to down many of the incoming missiles but the cascading debris caused serious damage.
Kyiv is also believed to have been massively affected by a cyber attack on official records and registers.
The deadly strikes from Putin are said to have been done in revenge for the assassination of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.
Footage showed the moment a bomb planted in an electric scooter blew up the top Russian general.
Kirllov has previously been accused of masterminding the use of chemical weapons in Ukraine.
A bomb hidden in an electric scooter is believed to have been detonated remotely, triggering the explosion of an estimated 200g of TNT.
Russian cops suspect the bomber used a radio signal and was within range of the scene when the improvised explosive device blew up.
It comes as a leaked audio recording has revealed North Korean troops have suffered serious losses in Russia in another blow to Putin.
A conversation between a nurse and her husband, allegedly intercepted by Ukraine’s Security Service suggests that Moscow’s hospitals are crammed with injured soldiers.
Who is Putin’s ‘Radioactive Man’ Igor Kirillov?
NOTORIOUS Russian general Igor Kirillov is the most senior Russian military officer to be assassinated inside Russia by Ukraine in the latest humiliating blow for Putin.
Dubbed Putin’s radioactive man, Kirillov was yesterday charged with masterminding the use of banned chemical weapons against Ukrainian soldiers.
Charging him in absentia with war crimes, the Ukrainian SBU said he was responsible for more than 4,800 documented cases of Russian troops using chemical munitions since the start of the war.
Kyiv accused the lieutenant general of directing the use of K-1 grenades loaded with banned irritant agents, CS and CN.
Unsuspecting Ukrainian soldiers were forced out of trenches and into direct fire when they were deployed by FPV drones.
At least 2,000 of Kyiv’s troops have been hospitalised since the start of the war as a result, the SBU said.
Kirillov was appointed as Putin’s Chief of the Russian Armed Forces’ Radiation, Chemical, and Biological Defence Troops in 2017.
Born in July 1970 in riverside city Kostroma, Kirillov went on to attend Kostroma Higher Military Command School of Chemical Defence.
He served as a platoon commander in the Western Group of Forces in Germany and the Moscow Military District.
After graduating, he held several posts in Russia’s nuclear, biological and chemical defence forces – becoming the chief in 2017.
Kirillov notoriously helped develop the TOS-2 Tosochka heavy flamethrower system.
In October, he was sanctioned by the UK for using riot control agents in Ukraine after multiple reports of the use of the toxic choking agent chloropicrin during the war.
The UK government said Kirillov was “responsible for helping deploy these barbaric weapons”.
It also accused the general of being “a significant mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation, spreading lies to mask Russia’s shameful and dangerous behaviour”.
He famously accused American biolabs in Ukraine of developing drones containing thousands of mosquitoes carrying infectious diseases.
The war criminal alleged there were plans to deploy the drones to infect Russian troops – and ultimately kill them.
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