Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine's capital Kyiv in the early hours on Thursday, blasting apart residential buildings, killing at least 13 people and wounding scores.
Multiple explosions shook buildings and reverberated across the capital throughout the night as thousands of residents rushed to bomb shelters and underground metro stations. It was the second-deadliest Russian attack on Kyiv so far this year.
"Russia once again carried out a cynical, large-scale attack on Ukraine," Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said on the Telegram app. "The enemy launched dozens of ballistic missiles. Kyiv was hit the hardest."
"As of now, 13 people are known to have been killed."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier warned of a possible overnight attack and said he was cutting short his visit to Dublin for the start of Ireland's six-month term in the rotating presidency of the EU.
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the capital's military administration, said 56 people, including two children, were injured and three dozen locations across the city had been damaged in the attacks.
"The enemy has once again deliberately targeted residential neighbourhoods and killed civilians. We have sustained extensive damage and a significant number of casualties, including children," he wrote on Telegram.
Pictures posted online showed a fire burning out of control at the top of a building on the central Shevchenko Boulevard, while elsewhere in the city, windows blew out and cars were destroyed.
Multiple explosions were heard in Kyiv, a Reuters witness said, and authorities in the region surrounding the capital said on Telegram separately that there were also casualties there.
Russia launched 74 missiles and 496 drones during the attack, the Ukrainian air force said. Air defense units downed most of those, but 25 ballistic missiles and 12 drones struck 33 locations.
Neighboring Poland, a NATO and European Union member, briefly scrambled fighter jets on Thursday as a preventive measure before calling those back and saying no airspace violation was recorded.
Finland also briefly issued a temporary aviation restriction zone in the eastern Gulf of Finland before lifting it later, its defense forces said on X.
Russia's Defense Ministry, in a Telegram post, said it targeted military and energy facilities, as well as airports in Kyiv and other locations.
The ministry said the strikes were retaliation for Ukraine's attacks on Russian civil infrastructure, without elaborating.
Russia downed 327 drones overnight, the ministry said. This number includes drones shot down over Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
Elsewhere in Russia, one person was killed, four people were wounded and an industrial facility was damaged in a drone attack on the Nizhny Novgorod region, Governor Gleb Nikitin said on Thursday. The region is home to the NORSI oil refinery, one of Russia's largest.
Governor Alexander Drozdenko of Russia's northwestern Leningrad region, where large export and oil refining facilities are located, said on Telegram that Russian forces brought down seven drones on Thursday.
In the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, a man was killed and his wife injured after a drone hit their home, local authorities said separately on Telegram.
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