MOSCOW: Russia fired cruise and ballistic missiles and Shahed-type drones at targets across Ukraine, killing at least three civilians and injuring more than 10 people, Ukrainian authorities said.
Russia targeted at least three big cities, according to the Ukrainian military, which said it intercepted 44 drones and missiles of the 64 that were launched.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said two people were killed in the capital, Kyiv, and one person in Mykolaiv in the south of the country.
“Another massive attack against our state. Six regions were under the enemy’s strike. All our services are now working to cope with the consequences of this terror,” he posted on X.
Power was knocked out in parts of Kyiv, with high voltage cables damaged, and people were trapped under rubble, the president said.
According to Mayor Vitalii Klitschko, 13 people were injured in Kyiv, including a pregnant woman.Apartment buildings caught fire in multiple Kyiv districts, he said.
Oleksandr Senkevich, the mayor of Mykolaiv, said the attack had stripped roofs of 20 houses and damaged gas and water pipes in the port city, killing one man.
In Kharkiv, in northeastern Ukraine, a 52-year-old woman was slightly injured in an S-300 missile attack, according to the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov.
Missiles hit as far away as the Lviv region of western Ukraine, where a fire broke out, officials said.
The attacks in Kyiv sent Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, into an air raid shelter in his hotel, the AFP news agency reported.
Borrell is visiting to underline the bloc’s “unwavering support” to Ukraine as the war nears its third year.
All 27 EU countries agreed on an additional 50-billion-euro ($54bn) aid package for Ukraine last week. Western help is desperately needed by Ukraine, which is struggling with ammunition and personnel shortages.
Though the roughly 1,500km (900-mile) front line has barely budged in recent months, Russian forces have the upper hand in stocks of missiles and artillery ammunition used for long-range strikes.
The latest barrage follows a pattern of attacks targeting civilians and critical infrastructure.
Vadym Filashkin, the governor of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, said Russia was firing between 1,500 and 2,500 shells and missiles at the area every day.
He said Russia had dropped 200 guided aerial bombs on the front-line town of Avdiivka over the past month and was “totally destroying it”. The town’s population has dropped from 32,000 before the war to fewer than 1,000, according to local officials. –Agencies
