KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian attacks across Ukraine overnight into Thursday killed at least eight people and wounded dozens of others, officials said, with the heaviest casualties and aftermath reported in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk and western Lviv regions.
The attacks were the latest in a series of large-scale Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities that Russia has intensified over the summer, now occurring on a nearly weekly basis.
Ukraine’s President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv and the surrounding region, along with the Dnipro, Lviv, Poltava, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Cherkasy and Ivano-Frankivsk regions, were attacked overnight, with dozens of homes, businesses and infrastructure facilities destroyed or damaged. He said Russia used more than 70 missiles in the strike, a significant number of them ballistic, along with more than 280 attack drones, of which more than 260 were intercepted.
“Given the critical shortage of air defense missiles from our partners, our warriors are accomplishing truly incredible things, demonstrating a very high level of professionalism,” he said. “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.”
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian forces carried out a mass attack that killed six people and wounded 10 and damaged or destroyed civilian infrastructure, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration.
Children were among the dead, he said on Telegram — a 6-year-old girl and boys aged 11 and 17 in the Kryvyi Rih area.
Zelenskyy specified in his post on X that the parents of the kids were killed as well in the same attack, but two more children were pulled alive from under the rubble.
“It was an ordinary home, blown into smithereens by a ballistic missile... ” he said. Ukrainian leader said untimely assistance and delays in the delivery of anti-ballistic missiles lead to the kind of destruction and casualties seen in the attack, adding that it is important to support the protection of life.
In the Poltava region, next to Dnipropetrovsk region in the west, a drone strike hit warehouses at a private enterprise, killing one person, said regional head Vitalii Diakivnych. He said a delivery hub also was attacked, sparking a fire at warehouses that was quickly extinguished by State Emergency Service units, with no injuries reported there.
In Lviv, the number of people injured in a Russian missile attack rose to 30 as a rescue operation continued, said Maksym Kozytskyi, head of the Lviv regional military administration.
The city was struck at about 4:45 a.m., with the worst damage to two residential buildings, Lviv Mayor Andrii Sadovyi said. More than 20 residential buildings were damaged, along with a school and two kindergartens, he said, adding that children were among those injured, including one who was hospitalized.
In Kyiv, Russian forces struck the capital with ballistic missiles, killing a 31-year-old man and wounding two others, the National Police press service said. Residential buildings, a market, a garage cooperative, storage facilities and vehicles were damaged in the city, police said.
In the Kyiv region, five people were wounded in the Brovary district, including a minor and two women, acting regional administration head Ruslan Oliinyk said on Facebook.
In Moscow, the Defense Ministry said the Russian armed forces overnight launched a massive strike on air bases, arms factories and military telecommunications and logistics facilities in Kyiv, Lviv and in the Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhytomyr, Rivne, Vinnytsia and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
It said the military also hit a ship in the Pivdennyi port and two ships east and south of Odesa.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses downed 258 Ukrainian drones overnight. Penza Gov. Oleg Melnichenko said a depot belonging to Wildberries online retailer was set ablaze. He said one person was injured and 200 workers were evacuated.
Wildberries also reported that its warehouse in Sarapul in the region of Udmurtia was struck by a Ukrainian drone and set ablaze. It said the workers had been safely evacuated. The attacks were the latest in a series of Ukrainian strikes that hit depots belonging to Wildberries, the country’s largest online retailer, causing massive damage.
