KYIV, Ukraine: A barrage of Russian missiles and drones killed five people and wounded more than two dozen across Ukraine on Tuesday in the largest attack in weeks, officials said.
AFP reporters in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia — repeatedly battered by Russian attacks — saw a fire raging across multiple floors in a high-rise residential block, windows and balconies blasted out and grey smoke bellowing from the building.
The nightime attack came with Ukraine concerned that it could struggle to repel the relentless Russian aerial strikes as its supplies of US air defence systems dwindle amid the war in the Middle East.
Russia fired more than 390 attack drones and 34 various missiles -- ballistic, cruise and guided air-launched -- during the night, Kyiv’s air force and President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“These numbers clearly show that more protection is needed to save lives from Russian strikes,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.
“It is important to continue supporting Ukraine and to ensure that all agreements on air defence are implemented on time,” he added.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga accused Moscow of “deliberately” targeting civilians.
Ukraine’s air force said it had intercepted 365 drones and 25 missiles. Search and rescue operations were underway across the country, Zelensky said. A third round of US-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv aimed at ending Russia’s four-year invasion has been derailed by the war in the Middle East.
Ukraine sent a delegation to the United States last weekend in a bid to revive the negotiation process, but the effort yielded no immediate result.
Kyiv has been seeking to trade its anti-drone technology and expertise for conventional air defence missiles, which it urgently needs and has despatched around 200 of its military experts to Gulf countries facing Iranian drone attacks.
On the eve of the strikes, Zelensky had warned in his daily televised address that “there is information from our intelligence that the Russians may be preparing a massive strike”.
Russian missiles and drones rained down on residential areas as well as on transport and energy infrastructure, Ukrainian authorities said. In the central Poltava region, two people were killed and 12 wounded, including a five-year old child who was left in intensive care, emergency services said.
Local media published images of residential buildings with blown-out windows and scorched facades.
A 61-year-old passenger on a train in Kharkiv “died on the spot” after the carriage was hit by a drone, the regional prosecutor’s office said.
