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What happened on 10 October 2022 across Ukraine?
Summary
A look back at a day of Russian missile strikes on cities from Kyiv to Lviv, and a protest from Moldova over missiles crossing its airspace.
What did Ukraine wake up to on 10 October 2022? The answer was a wave of Russian missile strikes that hit cities across the country, from Kyiv and Kharkiv in the east and north to Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk in the west.
A wide target list
As reported at the time, the Russian Armed Forces struck Kyiv, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Sumy, Dnipro, Lviv, Ternopil and Poltava. At least nineteen people were killed and hundreds more were injured.
The breadth of the list was notable in itself: the strikes reached cities in the far west as well as those nearer the front.
Moldova's complaint
The strikes also had a regional dimension. Moldova confirmed that Russian Navy warships in the Black Sea had fired cruise missiles through its airspace to hit targets inside Ukraine. Moldovan authorities then summoned the Russian ambassador to explain the violation.
The days before
The attacks came after several days of escalation. On 8 October 2022 an explosion hit the Kerch Strait Bridge, also known as the Crimean Bridge, causing a fire and the partial collapse of a road section. Three people were killed. A Russian investigative committee said the cause was a Ukrainian truck bomb.
On 9 October 2022 the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, formally accused Ukraine, and specifically the Security Service of Ukraine, of being behind the blast, calling it an act of terrorism.
The same day, a Russian missile attack on a residential building in Zaporizhzhia killed at least 13 people and injured 89 others. That followed shelling of a residential area of the same city days earlier, whose death toll had risen by 8 October 2022 to 17 civilians, including a child.
Other fronts of pressure
On 8 October 2022 a separate development touched on the weapons used in the war. Ukraine's immigration centre denied visa extensions to Iranian students, in retaliation for Russia's use of Iranian drones in its invasion.
Taken together, the reports from 8 to 10 October 2022 show a rapid sequence: a bridge explosion, an accusation from Moscow, and then missile strikes on cities across Ukraine, with consequences that reached neighbouring Moldova.
