Russian troops are using six-tonne X-22 missiles designed to sink warships to blow up civilian homes and baby hospitals.
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Russia’s hellish attack carried out overnight saw a barrage of airstrikes across Ukrainian cities with 158 drones and missiles at a scale “never seen before”.
The assault- retaliation for Ukraine’s Boxing Day missile strike in Crimea – has left at least 30 civilians dead and over 86 injured.
The Ministry of defence today confirmed some 200 air defence missiles will be sent to Ukraine to help protect the war-torn country from Russian drones and bombing.
Ukrainian officials said the Russians used massive X-22 – also known as the Kh-22 – anti-ship missile to level civilian homes and other public infrastructures.
The missile is a six tonne rocket with a one tonne warhead capable of being fitted with a nuke – and is meant for destroying massive warships.
Russian engineers created the weapon during the Cold War.
It was designed to sink US aircraft carriers should World War 3 break out.
They are also known as “carrier killers”.
Flying towards their target at speeds of up to 3,500mph, the land or air-fired missile has potentially devastating firepower.
But instead Putin’s twisted forces are firing them against innocent people in their own homes.
In a previous statement, Ukrainian defence chief Andriy Zagorodnyuk said: “[Kh-22’s were] originally designed in 1960s to attack air carriers.
“But Russians decided to use against civilians.”
Out of the 110 missiles fired on Ukraine, eight were reported to be the lethal X-22.
Since the beginning of the invasion, Russian troops have fired more than 300 X-22 missiles at Ukraine, none of which were shot down by the country’s air defence system.
Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for Ukrainian Armed Forces said: “The Kh-22 missile flies at a speed of four thousand kilometers per hour, it hits its target mostly along a ballistic trajectory, so special means are needed to intercept it.
“Anti-aircraft systems such as Patriot are needed, so it is not so easy with these missiles. The enemy has used more than 300 of these missiles since the full-scale invasion.
“In addition to the Kh-22, they have another modernized version of this missile – the Kh-32. Presumably, such missiles were also used today.”
The cruel use of these missiles have caused large-scale destruction across the cities in Ukraine.
In Dnipro a maternity hospital was hit as well as the Apollo shopping mall while in Odesa terrifying footage shows a high-rise building on fire after being struck by debris from a downed drone.
Two civilians were killed in the Black Sea port city while 15 were injured including two children, the regional governor said.
In Dnipro, six people have died – including an 18-month-old baby.
Several people have been injured in the attacks while a building of a metro station in Kyiv used as a shelter was damaged.
Twenty-two Russian strikes were recorded in Kharkiv, damaging a hospital, residential buildings and an industrial facility, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
Weapons unleashed by Putin to attack civilian infrastructures included Russian Kinzhal, Iskander, S-300s, Kh-22 and Kh-32 missiles – with 18 strategic bombers deployed as well as Iranian-supplied Shahed drones, according to Ukrainian sources.
Some reports said Kalibr missiles were also used.
Other cities, including Lviv in the west, Odesa and Zaporizhzhia in the south, and Kharkiv in the east were being attacked simultaneously by Russian troops.
In Kharkiv, 22 missiles hit the city between 5am and 8am, said city mayor Ihor Terekhov.
“A hospital, a school, residential buildings, a post office and industrial enterprises of the city were damaged.
“Seven people were injured and one person died. Rescuers are working on the spot.”
Regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said eight were wounded in the territory.
“As of now, as a result of the occupiers’ strikes on Kharkiv, one person has died, a man of about 35 years old.
“Eight people were injured, doctors are providing assistance on the spot.”
In Kharkiv – resident Olena Kurylo, called the “Face of the War” after her bloody image was flashed around the world at the start of the war in February 2022 – said today: “None of us has slept properly this December in Kharkiv and the region, but this was the worst night with more than 23 missiles and constant air raid alerts since 3am.
“My daughter is in a shelter with her boyfriend, they just about had time to pick up their cats and run there.
“I am hiding in the basement floor of my house, reading messages from friends from all over the country: Lviv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa…
“None of them slept, again and again they grabbed their children and elderly, and ran.
“I’ve been through so many emotions these past two years – from hope that our [Russian] ’brothers’ simply can’t do this to us, to shock and tears, to anger and now hatred.
“This cannot go on. They can’t just go on killing us before the rest of the world, like this is something they have the right to do.
“They don’t! They have no right! Please hear us from under the missiles, from under their endless death drones, from under their shelling.”
The attacks come after the Russian leader sent death squads into occupied Crimea to hunt down anyone working for the resistance and helped Kyiv blitz his warship.
Ukraine launched a British Storm Shadow missile strike that sunk the key Russian landing ship Novocherkassk in a major blow for Putin on Boxing Day.
A Ukrainian supersonic Su-24 jet is said to have launched the cruise missile which ripped apart the ship, said to be loaded with Iranian suicide drones.
At least 33 are suspected to have died and dozens wounded.
Ukraine has said its air force destroyed the Novocherkassk landing ship, with President Volodymyr Zelensky joking on social media that the vessel had now joined “the Russian underwater Black Sea fleet”.
In response, the Russian tyrant is said to have vowed to drag his bloody war in Ukraine out for at least five more years.
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