Russia unleashes massive attack on Ukraine, killing at least 30
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones against Ukrainian targets, officials said Friday, killing at least 30 civilians across the country in what an air force official called the biggest aerial barrage of the war.
At least 144 people were wounded and an unknown number were buried under rubble during the roughly 18-hour onslaught, Ukrainian officials said. A maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools were among the buildings reported damaged across Ukraine.
In the capital, Kyiv, broken glass and mangled metal littered city streets. Air raid and emergency service sirens wailed as plumes of smoke drifted into a bright blue sky.
Kateryna Ivanivna, a 72-year-old Kyiv resident, said she threw herself to the ground when a missile struck.
“There was an explosion, then flames,” she said. “I covered my head and got down in the street. Then I ran into the subway station.”
Meanwhile, in Poland, authorities said that what apparently was a Russian missile had entered the country’s airspace Friday morning from the direction of Ukraine and then vanished off radars.
In the attack on Ukraine, the air force intercepted most of the ballistic and cruise missiles and the Shahed-type drones overnight, said Ukraine’s military chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
Western officials and analysts recently had warned that Russia limited its cruise missile strikes for months in an apparent effort to build up stockpiles for massive strikes during the winter, hoping to break the Ukrainians’ spirit.
The result was “the most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s fullscale invasion in February 2022, air force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his official Telegram channel. It topped the previous biggest assault, in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles, and this year’s biggest, with 81 missiles on March 9, according to air force records.
Fighting along the front line is largely bogged down by winter weather after Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive failed to make a significant breakthrough along the roughly 620-mile line of contact.
Ukrainian officials have urged the country’s Western allies to provide it with more air defenses. Their appeals have come as signs of war fatigue strain efforts to keep support in place.
President Joe Biden said in a statement that the bombardment shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be stopped, “but unless Congress takes urgent action in the new year, we will not be able to continue sending the weapons and vital air defense systems Ukraine needs to protect its people. Congress must step up and act.”
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the attack should stir the world to further action in support of Ukraine.
“These widespread attacks on Ukraine’s cities show Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy,” Sunak said on social media platform X, formerly Twitter. “We must continue to stand with Ukraine — for as long as it takes.”