Russian hardliners celebrated on Monday as missiles rained down on Ukrainian cities, saying the attacks were retaliation for the blast that partially destroyed Moscow’s bridge to Crimea and were a long-awaited sign that the Kremlin was intensifying its attacks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure.

Ramzan Kadyrov — the bellicose leader of the Russian republic of Chechnya — cheered that he was finally “satisfied with how the special military operation is ongoing”.

Sergei Aksynov, the head of Crimea said the attacks demonstrated that Russia’s approach to the war had changed.

Had the Russian military targeted Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure “every day since the first day of the special military operation, we would have ended it all in May”, he wrote on Telegram.

For months, Russian state media has been claiming that Russian forces were only hitting military targets in Ukraine.

That changed on Monday with Channel One reporting the strikes against Ukrainian cities as their top story.