Russia rains 1000 drones on Ukraine, killing eight and hitting Unesco site

People look at smoke rising from a burning building following a Russian drone attack in Lviv, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It was one of the biggest daytime aerial attacks of the war, the Ukrainian Air Force said, dealing strikes on cities across the country including the historical centre of Lviv. Photo / Yuriy Dyachyshyn, AFP

Russia fired almost 1000 drones at Ukraine over the last 24-hours, unleashing one of its largest-ever daytime attacks, killing at least eight people and hitting the Unesco-protected city centre of Lviv, officials said.

Two people were killed and a maternity hospital damaged in a drone strike on the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk, with another person killed in the central Vinnytsia region - part of an assault that followed an overnight barrage on residential buildings in several cities that killed another five people.

In Lviv, a western city far from the front, an AFP reporter saw a column of flames rising from a building next to the 17th-century St Andrew’s Church and Bernardine Monastery in the city centre, which was struck during evening rush hour.

Firefighters were working to put out the blaze at the apartment building, whose roof had been smashed in and windows blown out.

First responders and locals were seen sheltering inside a church in mid-attack, waiting for the all-clear to go back outside.

A spokesman for Ukraine’s Air Force told AFP it was one of the biggest-ever daytime attacks on Ukraine.

“On such a large scale, it’s basically the first time. I don’t recall there being such daytime strikes with this number of drones,” said the spokesman, Yuriy Ignat.

Russia fired 550 drones during the day, following 392 overnight, Ukraine’s Air Force said in a statement.

Moscow has typically fired its barrages overnight in the four-year war, which started with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

‘More protection needed’: Zelenskyy

The daytime strikes on the centre of Ivano-Frankivsk killed two people and wounded four, including a 6-year-old child, regional head Svitlana Onyshchuk said on social media.

Around 10 residential buildings and a maternity hospital were damaged, she said.

In the Vinnytsia region, one person was killed and 11 wounded, the regional head said.

In Lviv, at least 13 people were hospitalised.

Unverified video from the city shared widely on social media showed a drone careering down into a building near a church in the city centre, erupting into a ball of flames on impact.

Earlier, in Kyiv, AFP reporters saw locals - including a mother with her toddler - sheltering in the metro at lunchtime during a rare midday air alert.

The attacks came with Ukraine concerned that it could struggle to repel relentless Russian aerial strikes as its supplies of United States air defence systems dwindle amid the war in the Middle East.

“These numbers clearly show that more protection is needed to save lives from Russian strikes,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media.

A third round of US-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv aimed at ending Russia’s invasion has been derailed by the war in the Middle East.

Ukraine sent a delegation to the US last weekend in a bid to revive the negotiation process, but the effort yielded no immediate result.

Kyiv has been seeking to trade its anti-drone technology and expertise for conventional air defence missiles, which it urgently needs, and has dispatched around 200 of its military experts to Gulf countries facing Iranian drone attacks.

Housing, infrastructure hit

Overnight, Russian missiles and drones rained down on residential areas and transport and energy infrastructure across Ukraine, local authorities said.

Five people were killed and dozens wounded in strikes across the central Poltava region, the eastern city of Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south.

AFP reporters in Zaporizhzhia - repeatedly battered by Russian attacks - saw a fire raging across multiple floors in a high-rise residential block, windows and balconies blasted out and grey smoke bellowing from the building.

The night-time attack also cut a key power line connecting neighbouring Moldova to Europe, forcing the country to declare a state of emergency.

Another power line to the southern Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was also cut, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported.

Russia has occupied large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine in a gruelling campaign that has forced millions of people to flee their homes.

In Russia, authorities in the western Kursk region said a Ukrainian strike on a farm had killed one person and wounded 13.

On the battlefield, Russia’s Army said it had captured a Ukrainian village in the Kharkiv region.

-Agence France-Presse