Kyiv resident Mariia said she had been awoken at home by a “horrible sound” and taken shelter in her bathroom.
“It was so frightening. A missile was flying and everything was buzzing, whirring. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run down to the shelter,” she said. “As I went inside the bathroom, the mirror flew off (the wall).”
Nato member Poland’s military said an unidentified aerial object had entered its airspace from neighbouring Ukraine and been tracked by its air defences until its signal disappeared.
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, neither denied nor confirmed the report, but noted similar incidents in Poland and Romania during past Russian air strikes.
Army chief General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said the attack had targeted critical infrastructure and industrial and military facilities. There was no immediate comment from Russia, which denies targeting civilians.
“Russia attacked with everything it has in its arsenal … Approximately 110 missiles were fired, most of which were shot down,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram messenger.
Ukraine has been warning for weeks that Russia could be stockpiling missiles to launch a major air attack on the energy system. Last winter, millions of people were plunged into darkness when Russian strikes pounded the power grid.
The foreign ministry said Friday’s strike was “one of the largest missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and villages” since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.
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Ukraine says Russian strike killed over 50 in one of the deadliest attacks of the war
Ukraine says Russian strike killed over 50 in one of the deadliest attacks of the war
The energy ministry reported power outages in the regions of southern Odesa, northeastern Kharkiv, central Dnipropetrovsk and the area outside Kyiv.
As rescuers picked through the rubble of a strike that hit a house in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Viktor Chuhunov, 73, said he had been at home when he suddenly heard a powerful explosion.
“A woman died here. I don’t know whether her son was at home, maybe he was at work,” he said of the house.
Missiles also hit several infrastructure facilities in Zaporizhzhia, the interior minister said on Telegram messenger.
Five people were killed in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk where missiles struck a shopping centre, a house and a six-storey residential building, police said.
Three people were killed in the Black Sea port city of Odesa and at least 15 were wounded, including two children, the regional governor said, reporting hits on residential buildings.
In the Lviv region, which borders Poland, missile strikes were confirmed at an unnamed critical infrastructure facility, the president’s office said.
One person was killed in a damaged multistorey residential building in the city of Lviv, the regional governor said. Three schools and a kindergarten were also damaged, the mayor said.
In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, a missile strike damaged a warehouse, an industrial facility, a medical facility and a transport depot, the regional governor said. One person was killed and 11 other were injured, he said.