Russia unleashed its latest mass air strike on Ukraine, local officials said on Tuesday, killing several people and wounding around 50 others.
The early-morning missile attack mostly targeted the country’s two largest cities, the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv in the east.
At least two people were killed and 35 wounded in Kharkiv in strikes on apartment buildings, according to police and the regional governor. Reports varied about the exact number of dead and injured.
Rescue workers were still digging through rubble to search for survivors, Mayor Ihor Terekhov told local television.
Kyiv city officials said up to 18 had been wounded after strikes on three districts, adding that several apartments had caught fire in the attack. They were also clarifying reports of one fatality.
Reuters witnesses reported hearing several waves of explosions in and around Kyiv and saw burning debris falling from the sky.
“Strong explosions, our house … was shaking,” lawmaker Iryna Geraschenko wrote on Telegram.
One person was also killed in the southeastern city of Pavlohrad, the regional governor said.
Ukraine’s air force said the military had destroyed 21 out of 41 missiles of various types launched by Russia.
“The world must understand that this terror can only be stopped by force,” the head of Ukraine’s presidential administration, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram.
Officials in the northern region of Sumy also said critical infrastructure had been damaged by a missile strike on the city of Shostka.
Russia, which did not immediately comment on the attack, has carried out regular air strikes on cities and civilian infrastructure far behind the front line of its nearly two-year-old invasion of Ukraine.
Moscow had accused Kyiv on Sunday of shelling the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, killing 27 people. Ukrainian forces said Russia bore responsibility for the attack.
(Reuters)