Russia has launched a massive drone-and-racing attack that is aimed at the Ukrainian capital Kiev and dozens of other regions for a second consecutive night, in which at least 12 people were killed and dozens of more injured, local officials said.
Ukraine was hit with 367 drones and missiles, making it the largest single attack of the more than three years of war, according to spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force Yuriy Ihnat.
In total, Russia used 69 missiles from different types and 298 drones, including Iranian drones designed, Colonel Ihnat told The Associated Press.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow, but the Russian Ministry of Defense said that his air defenses shot down 110 Ukrainian drones at night.
A number of houses in the Kyiv region were destroyed at night in Russian strikes. ((Ukrainian emergency aid via AP))
The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zenskyy called on the United States, who has taken a softer public line about Russia and has put on his leader Vladimir Putin since President Donald Trump, to speak out against the attack and sanctions on Russia.
“The silence of America, the silence of others in the world, only encourages Putin,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”
The village of Markhalivka, in the Kyiv region in Ukraine, was also hit hard. ((Reuters: Thomas Peter))
Mr. Zenskyy also wrote that on X that More than 30 cities and villages in Ukraine were the target at nightIncluding Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, Chernihiv, Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv and Cherkasy Regions.
“These were intentional strikes on ordinary cities. Ordinary residential buildings were destroyed and damaged,” he said.
“Determination is now important – the determination of the United States, of European countries and of everyone around the world looking for peace.“
For Kyiv, the morning after the attack, the city of Kyiv Day observed, a national holiday to commemorate the establishment of the city that falls on the last Sunday of May.
The attack also preceded the third and last day of a planned prison with Ukraine, in which the two countries each completed the exchange of 1000 prisoners in a rare example of cooperation that came earlier this month from other fruitless peace talks.
Strikes kill three children in Zhytomyr
The sound of explosions flourished all night in Kiev and the surrounding area, while Ukrainian air defense forces kept for hours in their efforts to shoot enemy drones and missiles.
Branden broke out in houses and companies, left by falling drone rubble, and at least four people were killed in the capital itself, according to the Ukraine security service.
In the Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, three children aged 8, 12 and 17 were killed, according to emergency services, while at least four people were killed in Khmelnytskyi and a man in Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine.
A woman cries while standing on the rubble of her house in Khmelnytski. ((Ukrainian emergency aid via AP))
Mayor Vitali Klitschko of Kyiv said that a student dormitory in the Holosiivskyi district was hit by a drone and one of the walls of the building was on fire.
In the village of Markhalivka, just outside Kiev, the Fedorenkos looked their destroyed house in tears.
“The street looks like Bakhmut, such as Mariupol, it’s just terrible,” said 76-year-old Liubov Fedorenko, who compared their village with some of the most destroyed cities of Ukraine in the war.
She told a reporter from Associated Press that she was grateful that her daughter had not visited the village for the weekend.
“I tried to persuade my daughter to come to us,” she said.
“After all, you live on the eighth floor in Kiev, and here it is the ground floor,” she said she had told her daughter.
“She said,” No, Mom, I’m not coming. ” And Godzijdank did not come because the rocket struck [the house] On the side where the children’s rooms were. “
Ivan Fedorenko, 80, said he regretted that he had left the two dogs of the family in the house after the air raid had gone out siren.
“They burned dead,” he said.
“I want to bury them, but I am not allowed yet.”
Despite POW swaps, no let-up in fighting
Russia and Ukraine each brought prisoners home on Sunday, after an exchange of 307 on Saturday and 390 on Friday – close this round swaps with each side that brought 1000 soldiers and civilians home.
The Swap came down to the biggest exchange of prisoners in more than three years of war.
Despite the successful performance, the POW exchange did not stop fighting on the ground either.
Fights have continued along the approximately 1,000 kilometer front line, where tens of thousands of soldiers were killed, and neither of them admitted in his artillery attacks on enemy positions.
The Russian Ministry of Defense also reported on Sunday that the troops had taken control of the village of Romanivka, in the Donetsk region in Oost -Ukraine, although rotary agencies could not confirm the report independently.
AP/Reuters
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