Several Ukrainian cities hit in Russian overnight aerial attack

Several Ukrainian cities, including Zaporizhzhia, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kyiv, were struck during a night of intense Russian shelling.

Russia launched six missiles and 78 Shahed drones at Ukraine overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, according to Ukraine’s air forces, which reported intercepting and destroying four missiles and 66 drones.

The attack on Zaporizhzhia injured at least eight people, including a 14-year-old boy, according to Governor Ivan Fedorov.

The State Emergency Service released a video of severely damaged residential houses with blown-out windows and shrapnel-pierced walls, reporting that 12 buildings were affected and 18 people evacuated.

“Launching strikes against the civilian population, and doing it at night, is the peak of Russian cynicism,” Fedorov wrote on his Telegram page. “Russia is a terrorist country. The world must stop this arbitrariness!!!” he added.

In a separate attack, the wreckage of a Russian drone damaged a critical infrastructure facility in Ivano-Frankivsk, causing a fire, but no one was injured.

The attack caused damage to power grids. Four central streets of the city and some of the adjacent ones remain without power. Power engineers are currently repairing the damage.

Some of the city’s educational institutions will have power outages for at least a day, while trolleybuses have stopped running on certain routes. The authorities plan to provide additional buses as replacements.

Russian missiles and drones target Kyiv for over five hours

Ukraine’s air defences also battled Russian missiles and drones over the capital Kyiv for over five hours, the Ukrainian Air Force said.

The attack injured at least two people, according to Ukraine’s Emergency Service. A nursery, a gas pipe and around 20 cars were damaged in the city, the Kyiv Military Administration said.

Long-range strikes have been a hallmark of Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine, now deep in its third year, often hitting civilian areas. Attacks on the electricity network have knocked out around 70% of Ukraine’s energy generation capacity, according to the United Nations, bringing blackouts as winter approaches.

Air defence systems are a critical need for Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due to meet President Joe Biden in Washington on Thursday in an effort to ensure continuing US military support for his country.