Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced that the main strike was aimed at the capital, Kyiv. According to the State Emergency Service, six people died and 64 were injured, including two children. At least 38 people remain in hospital.
There are also heavy losses in Dnipro. 11 people died there, including a child. The injured are 37. Rescue teams continue to search for six people under the ruins of a partially destroyed four-story residential building.
Over 650 drones and dozens of missiles
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 73 cruise, ballistic and hypersonic missiles, as well as 656 attack drones.
Ukrainian air defenses have destroyed or intercepted 40 missiles and 602 drones. Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said eight hypersonic Zircon missiles, launched in two waves, were also used for the attack.
However, 30 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and 33 drones hit 38 different sites on the territory of Ukraine.
Destruction in Kyiv
In Kyiv, many residential buildings, commercial establishments and infrastructure facilities were damaged.
A nine-story residential building was damaged in the Podol region. In the Solomyan district, a 15-story and a 24-story block were damaged. In the Obolon region, debris from a drone caused a fire near a kindergarten and a construction site.
Fires also broke out at gas stations in the Darnytskyi and Shevchenko districts, as well as in commercial buildings in various parts of the capital.
A family polyclinic in the Teremki district, which serves about 20,000 residents, was also seriously affected. The head of the medical facility Olesya Evlahovich stated that the building is in a dangerous condition and there is a risk of collapse.
“It’s just bricks and rubble inside,” she said.
It also hit other regions
In addition to Kyiv and Dnipro, strikes were carried out in Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Zaporizhia, Poltava, Sumy, Chernihiv and Khmelnytskyi regions.
In Kharkiv, several areas of the city were hit. Residential buildings, cars and administrative buildings were damaged. At least ten people were injured.
In Kyiv region, damage was done in Bucha and Vyshgorod regions. Residential buildings, warehouses and other buildings were damaged.
More than 500 employees of the State Emergency Service participated in rescue operations across the country.
Zelensky asked for more Patriot systems
After the attack, Zelensky again called on the United States to speed up the delivery of missiles for the Patriot air defense systems.
“If Ukraine is not protected from ballistic and other missile strikes, these attacks will continue. Europe also needs its own anti-missile defense,” the Ukrainian president said.
He recalled that Ukrainian intelligence had been warning for days about the preparation of a new large-scale Russian attack.
Poland raised combat aviation
At the time of the strikes, Poland said it had raised its own and allied warplanes to defend NATO airspace.
The attack comes amid an ongoing diplomatic standoff and stepped-up Russian airstrikes against Ukrainian cities. Just a week earlier, Russia fired 90 missiles and 600 drones at Kiev and its surroundings in one of the worst attacks in a year.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibikha described the latest strikes as another act of terror.
“Moscow is losing on the battlefield. No amount of missiles will change that,” he said, calling on Western allies to increase military aid and sanctions pressure against Russia.
