Russia fired over 200 missile and drones across Ukraine overnight and in the early morning, killing five people, as Moscow targeted the country’s energy grid in an effort to disrupt power supply as winter looms.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said about 120 missiles and 90 drones were launched by Russia and that two people were killed and six wounded in a drone strike on the southern city of Mykolaiv.
It was the biggest missile and drone attack on Ukraine since August with reports of attacks on critical infrastructure in the regions of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Rivne in the west as well as in Kriyvi Rih, Vinnytsia, Odesa and Kyiv.
The Ukrainian president described the bombing as the work of “Russian terrorists” and said that Russia had fired Kinzhal, Iskander and Zircon missiles as well as Shaheed drones. “Our air defence forces destroyed more than 140 air targets,” he added.
Andrii Sybiha, the country’s foreign minister, said: “Russia launched one of the largest air attacks: drones and missiles against peaceful cities, sleeping civilians, critical infrastructure.”
Other reports said two rail workers were killed after a depot was hit in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, while another person was reported dead and two injured in Lviv oblast, according to local officials.
Power cuts were reported around the country though it was unclear how serious the damage was. It is the eighth time Ukraine’s power grid has been targeted this year, the energy company Dtek said, but the first at the onset of winter.
Poland and Nato allies scrambled jets to safeguard its airspace in border areas early on Sunday, the country’s operational military command said, returning to their bases about three hours later without apparent incident.
Several explosions could be heard in Kyiv shortly after 7am, and in the capital’s Pechersk district one woman was reported hospitalised after a residential building was hit by a drone fragment, while a second person was treated on site.
The city’s mayor, Vitalli Klitschko, said rocket fragments and drone debris had also fallen in other parts of the city, but there were no reports of casualties or damage from the incidents.
F-16 fighters were scrambled as part of the country’s defence, Zelenskyy said, which also involved Soviet-made Sukhoi and MiG fighters as well as ground defence teams.
He described the strike as Moscow’s “true response” to leaders who had interacted with President Vladimir Putin, an apparent swipe at the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who placed a phone call to the Russian leader on Friday for the first time since late 2022.