Russia today launched a major airstrike against Ukraine, local officials said, killing at least four people and wounding more than 60 others.
The early morning bombings targeted the country’s two largest cities, the capital Kyiv and Kharkiv in the east. Three people were killed and 42 others were injured in Kharkiv during an attack on a building, Governor Oleh Synehubov said in Telegram.
Rescuers were searching the ruins for survivors, mayor Ihor Terekhov told local television. He said 30 houses were damaged in the attack.
A gas pipeline in Kharkiv was damaged and is being repaired, state energy company Naftogaz said. In Kyiv, Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said that 20 people, including three children, were injured in at least three districts and several houses and non-residential buildings were set on fire.
In one place, rescue workers were shaking and groaning while workers were clearing debris and broken glass. Some of the damage happened near the United Nations office in Kyiv, city organizer Denise Brown said in a statement.
The local military officials said that doctors are still fighting to save the life of the victim. Reuters reporters said they heard several waves of explosions in and around Kyiv and saw debris falling from the sky.
“The explosion is strong, our house… is shaking,” MP Iryna Geraschenko wrote on Telegram. One person was also killed in Pavlohrad, in the southeast of the country, the regional governor said.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the forces destroyed 21 of the 41 missiles fired by Russia. Ukraine’s military commander Serhiy Naiev released a video he said showed Russian air defenses shooting down a Russian missile.
Kyiv has asked its Western allies for more advanced air defense systems as it tries to defend against a coordinated Russian attack. “The world must understand that this terror can only be stopped by force,” wrote the head of the administration of Ukraine, Andriy Yermak, on Telegram.
Officials in the northern Sumy region also said that critical infrastructure was damaged by a mine strike in the town of Shostka. Russia, which did not immediately comment on the attack, has regularly carried out airstrikes on towns and civilian infrastructure behind its almost two-year war in Ukraine.
Moscow accused Kyiv on Sunday of shelling the Russian-occupied city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, killing 27 people. Ukraine’s military said Russia was responsible for the attack.
