Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine on Wednesday, killing at least eight people and damaging residential buildings, industrial facilities and infrastructure, Ukrainian officials said.
Two people were killed in the capital Kyiv, four in the northern city of Pryluki and two in the central Poltava region, authorities said.
“Ukraine has once again been hit by Russian missiles throughout the night,” Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s parliamentary commissioner for human rights, said on the Telegram app.
“Another sleepless night, another act of terror, after which people still have to plan their working day despite everything,” he added.
Russia launched 130 drones, 48 cruise missiles and also ballistic missiles to attack Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said. Air defense units downed 161 targets, it said on Telegram.
Kyiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv all faced Russian attacks, the Ukrainian air force said.
Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had carried out a “massive strike” on military-industrial facilities in Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions, using high-precision land-, sea- and air-launched weapons, as well as drones.
It said the targets included sites where Ukrainian defense company Fire Point manufactures and stores its Flamingo cruise missiles and medium- and long-range drones in Kyiv as well as the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kharkiv regions.
Last week, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine had fired its first domestically made ballistic missile in combat, produced by Fire Point.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Zelensky said he expected the company to have a longer-range FP-9 missile ready by the autumn, which the company has said will be capable of reaching Moscow.
Missile hits apartment block
In Pryluki in the northern Chernihiv region, a Russian missile slammed into a five-storey residential building, regional authorities said. At least four people were killed on the spot and 20 more were wounded, while more residents could be buried under the rubble, local authorities said.
Videos showed rescuers pulling people from beneath the wreckage.
Many Kyiv residents took shelter in the city’s metro stations as warnings of the upcoming attacks were shared by Ukrainian officials and military intelligence.
Several loud explosions reverberated through the capital during the night, Reuters witnesses said.
“The metro is better, because we live on the 9th floor of a high-rise, and it’s really scary when you’re on the 9th floor and missiles are flying at you,” Lesia, a 49-year-old Kyiv resident, told Reuters.
Ukrainian officials said Russian ballistic missiles targeted Kyiv in addition to the drones.
For months, Ukraine suffered from a critical lack of air defenses, prompting Zelensky and other officials to repeatedly plead for help and more supplies.
Overnight air strikes damaged an industrial facility in the southeastern city of Dnipro, transport infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia and apartment buildings in Kremenchuk, regional officials said on the Telegram messaging app.
