At least 20 people, including children, have been killed as Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles across Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities, AL Jazeera reports.
Ukraine’s air force said on Wednesday that Russia launched 130 drones, 48 cruise missiles, and an unspecified number of ballistic missiles in the overnight attack. It added air defence units downed 161 targets.
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and Poltava in central Ukraine, the southeastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv in the northeast were the focus of the Russian attacks, authorities said.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post that Russia had fired 70 missiles and also drones in one of its biggest attacks since Moscow launched the war in 2022.
“One of the key targets was our energy infrastructure. The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively,” Zelenskyy said.
The attacks also damaged residential buildings, industrial facilities, and infrastructure, according to Ukrainian officials.
In Pryluki, in the northern Chernihiv region, a Russian missile slammed into a five-storey residential building, regional authorities said. At least 14 people, including four children, were killed and 50 others wounded, emergency services said.
Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people were killed in the densely populated Darnytskyi neighbourhood in a fire caused by an air attack.
