Emergency services work at the site of an overnight rocket strike on a shopping center in Dnipro, Dnipropetrovsk region, southeastern Ukraine, 29 December 2023, in which five people were killed, amid a massive wave of Russian aerial attacks across the country. Photo by Arsen Dzodzaiev/EPA-EFE
Cities across Ukraine came under “massive” bombardment from hundreds of Russian missiles, attack drones and artillery fire overnight, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 70 in what authorities said Friday was one of the biggest assaults of the year.
Fatalities were reported in Kyiv, Lviv, Odessa, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia with Dnipro sustaining the worst loss of life after a direct hit on a shopping mall in the southeastern city killed five people and injured 15, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a social media post. Advertisement
Search and rescue teams, police and national guardsmen all across Ukraine were scrambling to deal with the aftermath, fighting fires, rescuing and supporting victims, said Klymenko.
“The enemy massively bombarded Ukraine. Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi, Podilskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts came under fire. Civilian infrastructure, cars and warehouses were damaged. Two people died, 18 were injured,” Klymenko said.
In Lviv in the far west, one person was killed and nine injured after rockets hit an apartment building and infrastructure while to the south in the port city of Odessa, two people were killed and 15 injured after a three-story building was razed and houses were damaged. The State Emergency Service rescued 23 people from the roof of a residential building. Advertisement
Rockets targeting infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia region killed one person and injured 10, while emergency services in Dnipro, 50 miles to the north, rescued four patients from a maternity hospital after it was struck.
In the front-line Kharkiv region, one person died and nine were injured after Russian forces opened fire with artillery at first light Friday.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, in a post on X, said the attacks, which came a day after the United States announced a $250 package of military aid for Ukraine, used virtually every type of weapon in Russia’s arsenal from “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles and drones to air-launched cruise missiles.
Confirming 158 missiles had been fired at targets across the country, of which 114 had been shot down, Ukraine Airforce spokesman Yurii Ihnat said an attack this large “has not been seen in a long time.”
Ukraine air defenses also shot down 27 of 36 Iran-made Shahed drones launched by Russia for both attack and reconnaissance purposes, the Air Force said on social media.
