Ukrainian firefighters at work Friday in a Kyiv apartment building hit by an attack drone during a massive overnight raid that killed four people, three of them emergency workers. Photo by Sergey Dolzhenko/EPA-EFE
At least four people were killed and 53 injured in Ukraine after Russia launched almost 500 drones and ballistic missiles as the country came under sustained airborne assault for the second night in a row.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people were killed and 20 injured after civilian and industrial infrastructure was targeted in six districts of the capital, but that search and rescue operations at multiple sites were continuing Friday morning, he wrote in a social media update.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said in a Telegram post that three of the fatalities were emergency service staff killed as they worked under fire while the attack on Kyiv was ongoing, and that nine other State Emergency Service workers had been injured, some of them seriously.
Kyiv City Military Administration said the combined missile and drone attack caused widespread damage, both from direct hits and debris from downed drones, with subway tracks and trains sustaining damage and a residential tower block and an educational institution set ablaze.
The authority said firefighters were continuing to battle a major blaze at a metal warehouse in Solomianskyi district in the west of the city.
In Ternopil province, 260 miles southwest of Kyiv, 10 people were injured, including five emergency workers hurt while battling a large fire, according to the regional governor.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said almost all of Ukraine had come under attack, including the Khmelnytskyi, Lviv, Volyn, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Poltava and Sumy regions.
“Some of the missiles and drones were shot down. I thank our warriors for their defense. But unfortunately, not all were intercepted,” he wrote on X.
The State Emergency Service in the northwestern province of Volyn said 15 people were injured when a 9-story apartment building in Lutsk, the capital, was struck. In a social media update, the SES said damage to residential and administrative buildings and manufacturing facilities had been extensive.
Kherson Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin reported 10 people injured after Russian forces, which occupy part of the province, opened fire with artillery on residential districts and civil infrastructure in the Ukrainian zone.
Four people were also hurt in Chernihiv, three in Poltava, three in Kharkiv and two in Sumy.
Ivan Federov, governor of Zaporizhzhia province, which is under partial Russian occupation, said on social media that the Ukrainian part of the province had come under heavy attack from airstrikes, artillery and drones, damaging infrastructure and homes, but there had been no deaths or injuries.
However, Ukraine also launched its own attacks into Russia, claiming to have successfully carried out “a preemptive strike, hitting enemy airfields and other important military facilities.”
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on social media that drones had carried out a second successful attack overnight on Russian aircraft at Engels airfield in the Saratov region, following a strike at the weekend.
It also claimed Diaghilev airfield in the Ryazan region, where air tankers and escort fighters used to carry out missile strikes against Ukraine were based, was also hit.
Russia’s state-run TASS news agency said civilian and industrial targets in Moscow and 11 other regions, including Saratov and Ryazan, were targeted by drones and missiles, injuring at least six people.
The defense ministry said air defenses shot down or disabled 174 drones and three guided missiles, but no mention was made of damage to military bases.
TASS confirmed a blaze in Engels in the Saratov region from a drone strike, but said it was at an industrial facility.
The agency said the injuries occurred in the city of Michurinsk, 250 miles southeast of Moscow, where three people were hurt, two of them hospitalized, and in the Tula region, 120 miles south of Moscow, where three people were being treated in the hospital.
Passengers in cars that were struck by debris from drones downed in Kaluga Region sustained minor injuries, the regional governor said.
