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 contain multiple blazes. By morning, residents and emergency crews were seen clearing debris scattered around heavily damaged buildings in the city.
Four people, including the child, were killed 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 Zelenskiy said the night demonstrated that Russia did not deserve any easing of global pressure or lifting of sanctions, with around 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.
Air force units said they shot down or neutralised 31 missiles and 636 drones, but 12 missiles and 20 drones still struck targets in the 24 hours to 7 a.m. on Thursday.
Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said rescue operations were ongoing and the death 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. "It is immoral, counterproductive, and dangerous to delay sanctions against Russia or packages of support for Ukraine."
Klitschko said Kyiv came under another attack early on Thursday, adding that a drone flying very low struck an 18-storey building.
Prosecutors put the number of injured in the city at 54.
Klitschko also said rescue teams had saved a mother and child from a building in a central district where the ground floor was badly damaged. Missile debris reportedly hit the sixth floor of an apartment building in the central Podil district.
A large fire broke out in a building in a northern district of the capital, injuring four emergency medical workers, while debris fell at multiple locations, he added.
Nine people were killed and 23 injured in an attack on a high-rise building in the southern city of Odesa, officials said.
Serhiy Lysak, head of the local military administration, said the city faced several waves of missile and drone attacks, causing damage to infrastructure facilities and residential buildings.
The regional governor said port and critical infrastructure facilities in Odesa were also damaged.
In Dnipro, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said two people were killed and 30 injured in an overnight attack on the city, adding that residential buildings were set on fire. Another man was killed and four people injured in the surrounding region.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city in the northeast, officials said two people were injured in drone strikes.
