Russia unleashed a lethal barrage of strikes against multiple Ukrainian cities Monday, smashing civilian targets including downtown Kyiv where at least eight people were killed.

The intense, hours-long attack marked a sudden military escalation by Moscow. It came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin called a Saturday explosion on the huge bridge connecting Russia to its annexed territory of Crimea a “terrorist act” masterminded by Ukrainian special services.

At least eight people were killed and 24 were injured in just one of the Kyiv strikes, according to preliminary information, said Rostyslav Smirnov, an adviser to the Ukrainian ministry of internal affairs.

The sustained barrage on major cities hit residential areas and critical infrastructure facilities alike, portending a major escalation in the war amid a Ukrainian counteroffensive in recent weeks. It came a few hours before Putin was due to hold a meeting with his security council, as Moscow’s war in Ukraine approaches its eight-month milestone and the Kremlin reels from humiliating battlefield setbacks in areas it is trying to annex.

Blasts struck in the capital’s Shevchenko district, a large area in the center of Kyiv that includes the historic old town as well as several government offices, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Some of the strikes hit near the government quarter in the symbolic heart of the capital, where Parliament and other major landmarks are located. A glass tower housing offices was significantly damaged, most of its blue-tinted windows blown out.

Residents were seen on the streets with blood on their clothes and hands. A young man wearing a blue jacket sat on the ground as a medic wrapped a bandage around his head. A woman with bandages wrapped around her head had blood all over the front of her blouse. Several cars were also damaged or completely destroyed. Air raid sirens sounded repeatedly across the country and in Kyiv.

The Kyiv subway stopped running as people took shelter in its stations. Power and water supplies were knocked out in numerous areas.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian forces launched dozens of missiles and Iranian-built drones against Ukraine.

The General Staff of the Ukraine Armed Forces said 75 missiles were fired against Ukrainian targets, with 41 of them neutralized by air defenses.

The targets were civilian areas and energy facilities in 10 cities, Zelenskyy said in a video address. “(The Russians) chose such a time and such targets on purpose to inflict the most damage,” Zelenskyy said.

Lesia Vasylenko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament, posted a photo on Twitter showing that at least one explosion occurred near the main building of the Kyiv National University in central Kyiv.

Elsewhere, Russia targeted civilian areas and energy infrastructure as air raid sirens sounded in every region of Ukraine, except Russia-annexed Crimea, for four straight hours.

Associated Press journalists in the center of Dnipro city saw the bodies of multiple people killed at an industrial site on the city’s outskirts. Windows in the area had been blown out and glass littered the street. A telecommunications building was hit.

Ukrainian media also reported explosions in a number of other locations, including the western city of Lviv that has been a refuge for many people fleeing the fighting in the east, as well as in Kharkiv, Ternopil, Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr and Kropyvnytskyi.

Kharkiv was hit three times, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. The strikes knocked out the electricity and water supply. Energy infrastructure was also hit in Lviv, Regional Governor Maksym Kozytskyi said.

A day earlier, Putin had called the attack on the Kerch Bridge to Crimea a terrorist act carried out by Ukrainian special services. In a meeting Sunday with the chairman of Russia’s Investigative Committee, Putin said “there’s no doubt it was a terrorist act directed at the destruction of critically important civilian infrastructure.”

The Kerch Bridge is important to Russia strategically, as a military supply line to its forces in Ukraine, and symbolically, as an emblem of its claims on Crimea. No one has claimed responsibility for damaging the 12-mile (19-kilometer) -long bridge, the longest in Europe.

Amid the onslaught, Zelenskyy said on his Telegram account that Russia is “trying to destroy us and wipe us off the face of the earth.”

“Please do not leave (bomb) shelters,” he wrote. “Let’s hold on and be strong.”

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Sabra Ayres in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Justin Spike and Yesica Fisch in Dnipro, Ukraine, contributed to this story.

AP