MOSCOW, April 28. /TASS/. Russian air defense forces repelled a massive strike by Ukrainian troops with Tochka-U ballistic missiles on Kherson residential quarters where kindergartens, schools and other social facilities are located, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Major-General Igor Konashenkov said on Thursday.

At about 23:00 Moscow time on April 27, the Ukrainian troops delivered a massive strike by Tochka-U ballistic missiles and rockets of heavy multiple rocket launchers on residential areas in central Kherson, the spokesman said.

"The nationalists’ indiscriminate missile and rocket strike targeted residential quarters in the area of Ushakov Avenue where kindergartens, schools and many social institutions are located. The Russian air defense forces thwarted the missile and rocket attack by the Ukrainian troops on Kherson residential areas," the general stressed.

As the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman specified, "12 shells of heavy multiple rocket launchers and also two Ukrainian Tochka-U ballistic missiles were shot down over the city and the fragments of one Tochka-U missile fell in Shevchenko Park."

On the morning of April 28, the Russian air defense capabilities also repelled a Ukrainian Tochka-U missile strike on residential areas in the city of Izyum in the Kharkov region, which targeted a city hospital where a Russian medical unit providing assistance to the population of the Kharkov Region is stationed, the general said.

"The indiscriminate missile and rocket strikes by the Kiev nationalist regime on Izyum and Kherson residential areas is a war crime and a gross violation of international humanitarian law," the Russian Defense Ministry spokesman stressed.

Deputy Chairman of the Kherson Region Civil-Military Administration, Head of the ‘For Peace and Order’ Committee for the Rescue of the Kherson Territory Kirill Stremousov told the Kherson and Zaporozhye 24 TV Channel that the fragments of destroyed missiles and rockets damaged homes, a communications center, an outpatient clinic, the Mayor’s Office, a maritime college, the Naval Academy and the House of Trade Unions in Kherson. He said that the Kiev regime had decided to deliver strikes on the city by lethal weapons to target precisely civilians.