Russia said its forces struck what it called military installations in retaliation for attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure. Ukraine accused Moscow of targeting civilian areas and said it would be wrong to equate the actions of “the aggressor and a country defending itself.”
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 74 missiles and 496 drones overnight, mainly targeting the capital.
While the country’s air defense managed to repel most of them, 25 ballistic missiles and 12 drones struck 33 sites.
Children are among the “significant number” of victims, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of kyiv’s military administration.
“The enemy is once again deliberately targeting residential areas and killing civilians,” he said Thursday morning. The Russian Defense Ministry said it targeted energy facilities in response to recent Ukrainian strikes.
Among those hit by the strikes was a high-rise apartment building, part of which was destroyed by the wind in southeast kyiv.
In a video posted on Telegram, Klitschko said rescuers were trying to find, among others, a 15-year-old girl and her family.
Russia also struck military bases in central and eastern Ukraine, according to the Defense Ministry cited by Russian media.
He claimed to have targeted Ukraine’s defense and energy infrastructure in response to recent attacks on Russian power plants from Moscow to the Black Sea.
The attacks led Russian President Vladimir Putin to admit that his country was facing a fuel shortage.
On Wednesday, Zelensky cut short his visit to Dublin after saying new intelligence suggested Moscow was planning to strike Ukraine.
“I urge our people to be especially careful, to protect themselves, their children and, of course, their families,” he said.
He added that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been “preparing this massive strike against Ukraine for some time.”
Russian troops recently advanced into the town of Kostyantynivka, one of Ukraine’s key last bastions in the east. If Moscow secures the city, it would provide a gateway to the entire Donbas region.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian commanders say they have regained more territory this year than they lost, disrupting Moscow’s crucial supply lines between the Russian border and occupied Crimea.
The land war has also been at a standstill for months, with troops on both sides largely entrenched in their positions.
Russia controls about a fifth of Ukraine’s territory, most of which it seized in the first months of its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
