Video Shows Ukrainians Responding to Explosions Outside TV Tower

A video posted to Facebook by the Ukrainian government shows the chilling aftermath of a Tuesday attack on a Kyiv TV tower.

Shared by the State Emergency Service (SES) of Ukraine, the clip begins with emergency workers walking through an area choked with smoke, fires visible in the distance. Later, they are seen in various bombed-out structures working to extinguish patches of flame. At certain points, the camera shows the workers' proximity to the TV tower.

"This is how the crazy 'Russian peace' is struggling with the truth," the SES wrote in its Facebook post, roughly translating from Ukrainian to English. "At all costs, the Russian government wants to hide from everyone the real number of its killed 'liberators.'

"Unfortunately, in this insidious war, civilian casualties again.... Five people died as a result of the shelling of a television tower in Kyiv. Five others were injured.
The video shows the consequences of another crime. And this proof is another nail in the coffin of the Kremlin's piece of land. Because it is difficult to even call it a state - during these six days of the war there is no trace of statehood left."

As of Tuesday afternoon, the video had been viewed just shy of 6,000 times and had received 166 reactions from Facebook users.

The Ukrainian government reported earlier on Tuesday that two missile strikes had hit the Kyiv TV tower. Oleksii Reznikov, defense minister for Ukraine, said that these strikes were part of an information and psychological operation by the Kremlin to cut off swaths of the country from television and Internet access, all in an effort to make the citizenry surrender.

"Its goal is to break the resistance of the people and the army," Reznikov said in a tweet on Tuesday. "At first, they can arrange a breakdown of connection. After [that], the spread of massive fake messages that the country's leadership has given up. We're in Kyiv! No surrender! Only victory!"

Ukrainian officials believe that this apparent operation will mainly target two areas that Russia is working to take control of: Kharkiv, the second-largest city in Ukraine, and Mariupol, a major port city. The government said that Russia would be incapable of knocking out Internet access across the whole country.

In the aftermath of the strikes, Vitali Klitschko, mayor of Kyiv, confirmed that the targeted TV tower was down, the result of damage done to its hardware and power substation. Engineers, he added, are working to restore functionality to the city's broadcast capabilities.

"The channels will not work for a while," the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs wrote on Telegram. "The backup broadcasting of some channels will be enabled in the near future."