A barrage of Russian missiles hit Kyiv on Friday, killing six people in one apartment block, attacks that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced as a “heinous” bid to spread terror.
A Russian drone attack on a market in southern Ukraine hours later killed two more people, authorities said. Ukraine also fired missiles into Russian territory and Russian officials reported a fire at a Black Sea oil refinery.
With a bitter winter looming amid widespread raids on Ukraine’s power stations, this was one of the largest attacks on Kyiv since Russia launched its full invasion of Ukraine in 2022, hitting buildings in most of the capital’s districts.
Several districts were plunged into darkness on Friday night because of power cuts.
A hospital, shops and offices were all hit, according to authorities. Officials said 36 people had been wounded. The attack damaged Azerbaijan’s embassy and the Baku Government summoned Moscow’s envoy to protest.
In eastern Kyiv, AFP reporters saw charred multi-storey buildings with dozens of windows and balconies blown out.
“My hair caught fire and I started putting it out,” said local resident Maria Kalchenko, outside one of the buildings where rescued workers cleared debris.
She tried to look for her dog, before a nearby wall collapsed.
“The doors were blown out, flames everywhere, the fire spreading, the neighbours screaming,” she told AFP.
Zelenskyy, who will go to Paris and Madrid next week in a new round of diplomatic visits, said the attack specifically aimed to cause “terror”.
“This was a deliberately calculated attack aimed at causing maximum harm to people and civilian infrastructure,” he added.
Moscow has fired record missile and drone barrages at Ukraine in recent months, hitting energy and rail infrastructure.
It has also targeted residential areas, knocking out power for tens of thousands across the country as temperatures plunge.
Friday’s attack showed Moscow’s “contempt for humanity”, Germany said.
“It is very evident and clear that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin aims to make winter as unbearable as possible for Ukraine, to destroy morale and break the resistance of the Ukrainian people,” said German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius.
AFP journalists saw Ukraine using tracer bullets and missile-defence systems during the night. Incandescent debris fell over large areas of the city. Flashes of bright orange from the explosions lit up the night sky.
Ukraine’s air force said it downed 405 out of 430 drones launched by Russia and 14 out of 19 missiles.
A senior Ukrainian official told AFP the city’s air defences worked particularly well to stop the attack from wreaking even more damage.
There were previously “certain issues with air defence” but this time “the air-defence systems worked well” the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
The official also said the attack showed how “the Russians have started using significantly more ballistic missiles”.
Ballistic missiles are particularly difficult to intercept given their speed and trajectory.
“They combine ballistic and aeroballistic missiles with waves of drones. It is not easy to shoot down,” the official said.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces carried out a “massive strike” of drones and hypersonic missiles against Ukrainian military and energy sites.
Moscow’s troops are grinding forward on the eastern front and continue to reject calls to halt the invasion. Hundreds of Russian troops have entered the eastern city of Pokrovsk, Ukraine has conceded.
Despite international calls for a ceasefire, Putin has demanded that Ukraine give up more territory in the east if it wants an end to the war.
Ukraine has in turn stepped up its retaliatory attacks on Russian oil and gas facilities deep behind the front.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine had used long-range Neptune missiles overnight against targets on Russian territory.
Russia said Ukrainian drone debris hit its Novovoronezh nuclear power plant near the city of Voronezh on Thursday, briefly disconnecting it from power. A civilian was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on a car in the border region of Begorod, its governor said.
Russian forces downed more than 200 Ukrainian drones overnight into Friday, Moscow’s defence ministry said, including 66 over the region of Krasnodar and 45 over Saratov, both in the south.
Russian officials reported a fire at a large refinery at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea and a hit on a civilian vessel that wounded three people.
– Agence France-Presse