Zelensky accuses Kremlin of targeted terror against population

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of carrying out targeted terrorist acts against his country’s population following heavy airstrikes last week.

Zelensky posted on social media on Sunday that over the past week the Russian military had used against Ukraine about 1,100 drones, 890 guided bombs and 50 rockets and cruise missiles, including the Oreshnik medium-range ballistic missile.

The weapons were fired “at targets that have no military significance: energy facilities and residential buildings,” Zelensky said.

Moscow deliberately waited out the freezing weather to make life as hard as possible for ordinary Ukrainians, Zelensky argued. “This is deliberate and cynical Russian terror against the people,” he wrote.

He illustrated his remarks with video clips showing damage caused by drones to civilian property in and around kyiv, as well as in the Kharkiv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Odessa, Zaporizhzhya and Chernihiv regions. Footage of the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, where the Oreshnik missile struck, was not shown.

The Kremlin presents the ongoing bombings against Ukraine as strikes against exclusively military targets, even if the destruction of power plants affects the civilian population.

Moscow recently leveled its own accusations of terrorism against kyiv, saying Ukraine launched a drone attack on one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences.

Zelensky vehemently denied the claim and the US foreign intelligence service, the CIA, concluded that Ukraine did not target Putin or any of his residences, according to US media.

Putin ordered war against Ukraine almost four years ago.