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Russia has killed at least 14 people in air strikes on Ukraine, including one peron in Kyiv, a day after the Ukrainian president warned that a “massive” attack was imminent.
Attacks extended as far west as the city of Lviv, forcing neighbouring Poland to scramble fighter jets to secure its airspace, according to a statement by its armed forces on X.
Multiple explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital soon after 1am local time on Thursday (22:00 GMT Wednesday), according to Kyiv Independent reporters on the ground.
One person was killed and two more injured in Kyiv, emergency services said. At least six more, including two children, were killed in Dnipropetrovsk, and another person was killed in Poltava, according to regional administrators in both areas.
In the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kryvyi Rih, two girls aged five and 12 were among six people killed. Eight people were injured in what Oleksandr Vilkul, the city’s defence council head, said was a direct strike by a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile.
“A dark night,” Vilkul said on Telegram, adding that the missile, launched from Russia’s Voronezh region, struck the home of a large family. He warned the death toll could increase as emergency workers clear away rubble.
In Lviv, close to Poland, rescue workers were scrambling to clear rubble to reach those trapped after Russian missiles damaged two apartment buildings and injured 26, officials said.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces struck what it called military facilities across Ukraine, in areas from Kyiv to Lviv and Dnipropetrovsk. It also said it struck three cargo ships, which it accused of carrying weapons and military equipment around the Black Sea city of Odesa.
“This Russian terror once again proves that protection against the Russian missile threat is the most important task when it comes to saving the lives of our people,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Thursday, adding that the work cannot be “left to Ukraine alone or to any one country alone”.
