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Russia unleashed its deadliest attack so far this year on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other cities overnight, killing 16 people, including a 12-year-old child, and wounding scores, in drone and missile strikes, officials said on Thursday.
Fires burned out of control in parts of the capital, sending black smoke billowing into the night sky, as firefighters struggled to control multiple blazes. The morning saw residents and emergency crews cleaning debris scattered around heavily damaged buildings in the city.
Four people, including the child, died in Kyiv, mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Nine people were killed in Odesa, and two in the southeastern city of Dnipro, where Russian attacks set residential buildings ablaze, according to regional officials.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the night had proven that Russia did not deserve any easing of global policy or lifting of sanctions, with 100 people wounded alongside those killed.
“There can be no normalization of Russia as it is today. Pressure on Russia must work. And it is important to fulfill every promise of assistance to Ukraine on time,” he said.
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Air force units shot down or neutralized 31 missiles and 636 drones, but 12 missiles and 20 drones hit in the 24 hours to 7 a.m. local time on Thursday, the air force said.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said rescue operations were ongoing and the toll could rise, while Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged the international community to act.
“All decisions required to increase pressure on the aggressor must be unblocked now,” he said on X. “It is immoral, counterproductive, and dangerous to delay sanctions against Russia or packages of support for Ukraine.”
Klitschko said that Kyiv came under another attack early on Thursday, adding that a drone, flying very low, slammed into an 18-storey building.
Prosecutors put the number of injured in the city at 54.
Klitschko said rescue teams had rescued a mother and child from a building in a central district where the ground floor was badly damaged. He also said missile debris had hit the sixth floor of an apartment building in the central Podil district.
A large fire had broken out in a building in a district in the north of the capital and four emergency medical workers were injured, while debris had fallen in several locations, Klitschko said.
Dnipro, Odesa hit
Nine people were killed and 23 injured in an attack on a high-rise building in the southern city of Odesa, officials said.
“Last night, the city came under several waves of missile and drone attacks,” Serhiy Lysak, the head of the local military administration, wrote on Telegram, reporting damage to infrastructure facilities and a residential building.
The regional governor said that port and critical infrastructure facilities in the city had also been damaged.
In Dnipro, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said that two people were killed and 30 injured in an evening and overnight attack on the city; he posted pictures showing residential buildings ablaze. Another man was killed and four people injured in the surrounding region, Ganzha added.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast, officials said two people had been injured in drone strikes.
Ukraine hits Russian port city, killing 2
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday that a massive overnight attack it had carried out on Ukraine had struck production facilities for cruise missiles and drones, as well as energy targets which it said supplied Kyiv’s armed forces.
Moscow said that the attack was a response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets inside Russia. A major Ukrainian overnight drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse killed two people, including a 14-year-old girl, injured seven, and sparked a large fire, Russian officials and media reported earlier on Thursday.
Tuapse is one of Russia’s major southern ports, serving as an oil product export hub and also handling dry bulk cargo such as coal and fertilizer. It is also home to a major oil refinery of the same name owned by Rosneft, Russia’s biggest oil producer.
Veniamin Kondratiev, governor of the Krasnodar region, said that an unidentified adult woman had been killed in what he called a massive attack by Ukrainian drones on Tuapse in addition to the teenager.
With no plans announced for further U.S.-mediated talks with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting three European capitals in 48 hours to try to secure promises of further military and financial support.
Germany and Ukraine agreed on a defence package valued at four billion euros ($6.4 billion Cdn), and Norway has pledged nine billion euros ($14.5 billion Cdn) in assistance, Ukrainian officials said.
