Russian missiles struck Kyiv on Sunday after five weeks of relative calm in the Ukrainian capital city.
Railway facilities and other buildings were hit during the barrage that sent at least one person to the hospital, according to reports.
The missile attack “came days after the United States announced plans to deliver $700 million of security assistance for Ukraine,” the Associated Press reported.
“Those weapons include four precision-guided, medium-range rocket systems, as well as helicopters, Javelin anti-tank weapon systems, radars, tactical vehicles and more,” it added.
The strikes also came after more than a month of peace in the Ukrainian capital which led to the U.S. and other nations returning embassy staff to Kyiv.
“Before Sunday’s early morning attack, Kyiv had not faced any such Russian airstrikes since the April 28 visit of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres,” the AP reported. “The attack triggered air-raid alarms and showed that Russia still had the capability and willingness to hit at Ukraine’s heart, despite refocusing its efforts to capture Ukrainian territory in the east.”
The State Department announced last month that it had raised the American flag at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv after moving operations three months earlier.
“Today we are officially resuming operations at the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv. The Ukrainian people, with our security assistance, have defended their homeland in the face of Russia’s unconscionable invasion, and, as a result, the Stars and Stripes are flying over the Embassy once again,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
“We stand proudly with, and continue to support, the government and people of Ukraine as they defend their country from the Kremlin’s brutal war of aggression,” he added. The new missile strikes could cause safety concerns for U.S. Embassy staff and workers of other embassies in Kyiv.
The missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital also followed a Russian official who threatened nuclear war against the U.S. for providing support to Ukraine, claiming that four of Russia’s new intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) could decimate both of America’s coasts.
“I will tell you absolutely competently that to destroy the entire the East Coast of the United States, two Sarmat missiles are needed,” Alexei Zhuravlev, a member of Russia’s parliament, told Russian state television.
“And the same goes for the West Coast,” he added. “Four missiles, and there will be nothing left.”
The threats came after President Joe Biden shared during an op-ed published in The New York Times on Tuesday that the U.S. will provide advanced rocket systems and munitions to Ukraine.
According to the report, “the American High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, which is a weapon capable of firing satellite-guided rockets that carry roughly the same explosive power as a 500-pound bomb dropped from the air.”
In addition, “The system can strike targets up to 48 miles away,” a senior administration official told reporters Tuesday evening.