Yesterday, Vladimir Putin launched his deadliest blitz missile on Ukraine, killing more than 20 people and causing power outages in tens of thousands of households.

Officials say more than 20 missiles were fired from the Caspian Sea in the catastrophic onslaught, which targeted electrical substations near trains and residential areas, knocking off power to hundreds of thousands of terrified citizens.

A priest was among those slain in the eastern Ukrainian frontline area of Luhansk.

The wave of attacks comes as Russia prepares to commemorate Victory Day, which commemorates the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany, on May 9.

It is believed that Putin would use the occasion to declare an “all-out war” on Ukraine, rather than what he now refers to as a “special military operation.”

The Russian military said yesterday that it used sea and air-launched guided weapons, including Kalibr cruise missiles fired from submarines, to destroy power facilities at five railway stations across Ukraine, while artillery and aircraft also struck troops strongholds, fuel and ammunition depots, and other targets.

According to the governor of the eastern Donetsk region, strikes in the frontline Donbas area, where an oil store was targeted, killed 21 people.

It was the worst single incident since a missile assault on a train station in Kramatorsk killed 59 people a month ago.

Explosions shocked citizens in the western city of Lviv on Tuesday evening, the city’s first strikes since mid-April.

Officials say six missiles were fired directly into western Ukraine, where millions of people have fled since Putin’s February 24 assault.

Ukraine’s air defenses shot down two missiles, three of which struck Lviv and one of which struck the neighboring province of Zakarpattia.

One 24-year-old victim, who had emergency surgery to remove bomb shrapnel from his thigh, was parking his motorcycle outside his Lviv home when the incident occurred.

He said: ‘When I took off my helmet, I saw a rocket flying in my face. It fell behind a concrete wall, about ten meters from me. The garage I was standing near exploded.

‘Only when I ran home did I notice that there were fragments in my leg.’

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu defended the assault by claiming that Lviv was a transit point for NATO weapons.

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