Russia launched an attack on several cities in Ukraine in a “massive” assault overnight Thursday, killing more than 20 and injuring scores of people across the country.
Missiles and drones reportedly struck the capital, Kyiv, as well the cities of Kharkiv, Lviv, Odessa, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia. Millions of citizens received air raid alerts instructing them to seek shelter.
About a thousand kilometres separate Lviv in the Ukraine’s west and Kharkiv in the east.
“We haven’t seen so much red on our monitors for a long time,” Ukraine’s Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said, adding that Russia used a combination of hypersonic, cruise and ballistic missiles to strike targets.
The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 114 of the 158 drones and missiles fired by Russia on Friday.
In Kyiv, an apartment building, metro station and warehouse were damaged, killing at least one person and injuring seven others, according to the city’s mayor on Telegram.
In the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, a maternity hospital and a shopping centre were targeted, while the northeastern city of Kharkiv came under “massive rocket fire,” the cities’ mayors said on Telegram.
“In total, 26 people were killed and more than 120 people were injured in Ukraine as a result of the mass shelling in the morning,” Oleksii Kuleba, deputy head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said Friday afternoon.
“There are people killed by Russian missiles today that were launched at civilian facilities, civilian buildings,” presidential aide Andriy Yermak said on Telegram.
“We are doing everything to strengthen our air shield. But the world needs to see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror,” he added.
‘Heinous wave of attacks’
The assault comes days after Ukraine bombed a Russian warship in Crimea, striking a major blow against Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. But it comes amid signs of slipping Western support for Ukraine, with fierce debate in the United States about continued military aid for the country’s push-back against Russia.
“We will fight to guarantee the safety of our country, every city, and all our people. Russian terror must lose — and it will,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
The latest assault triggered fresh international condemnation Friday. U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak said on X that the attacks showed Russian President Vladimir Putin “will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy.”
Denise Brown, the United Nations’ humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine, issued a statement condemning “in the strongest terms” Russia’s “heinous wave of attacks on populated areas of Ukraine over the past few hours, which has left a path of destruction, death and human suffering.”
Polish airspace incursion
In a further development Friday, Poland — a NATO member country — said a Russian missile appeared to have briefly entered its territory.
“Everything indicates that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace,” General Wiesław Marian Kukuła said Friday, according to Polish news Onet. Poland tracked the flight path of Russian missiles and found out that “one of these rockets crossed the Polish border and then left it,” he said.
Polish authorities said the object entered the country’s territory for less than three minutes and violated airspace for about 40 kilometers.
Polish president Andrzej Duda discussed the apparent air space violation with NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg Friday.
NATO “is monitoring the situation & we will remain in contact as the facts are established,” Stoltenberg said.
This story has been updated with further reporting. Laura Hülsemann contributed reporting.