MERCILESS

At Least 18 Dead in Russia’s Biggest Air Attack on Ukraine, Kyiv Says

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow used “nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal” in the major bombardment.

Russia launched a massive barrage of drones and missiles against multiple cities in Ukraine overnight which left at least 18 people dead and over 130 others injured, Ukrainian officials said Friday, in what may be one of the largest assaults of the war.

Moscow used 158 means of air attack, according to preliminary information cited by Valery Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He said the bombardment began with Iranian-made Shahed drones, followed by cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and anti-radar missiles.

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Ukrainian Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk called the barrage the “most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Ukrainian military figures cited by the Associated Press show the previous biggest assault came in November 2022, when 96 missiles were launched against Ukraine.

The Ukrainian military successfully destroyed 27 drones and 87 missiles, Zaluzhnyi said. But reports of deaths and injuries across the country still emerged across a range of different targets and areas.

“A maternity ward, educational facilities, a shopping mall, multi-story residential buildings and private homes, a commercial storage, and a parking lot,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote in a statement Friday morning summarizing some of the targets hit by the barrage. “Kyiv, Lviv, Odessa, Dnipro, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and other cities.”

He added that Russia “used nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal” for the attack and that emergency services are working to provide aid to those in need. “We will surely respond to terrorist strikes,” Zelensky wrote. “And we will continue to fight for the security of our entire country, every city, and every citizen.”

The National Police of Ukraine said that as of 1 p.m. local time Friday, 18 civilians were known to have been killed with another 132 wounded.

The huge wave of attacks came after the Novocherkassk, a Russian landing ship in Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, was targeted by a Ukrainian strike this week. Russia officially acknowledged that the vessel had been damaged, while independent reports suggested it had been utterly obliterated, with dozens of sailors considered missing. A British intelligence assessment on Thursday said the ship had been “completely destroyed.”

In a possible retaliation against Ukraine, the deadliest single strike location Friday appeared to be at a shopping center in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region where five people were killed and another 15 were injured, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Igor Klymenko. “There is also a hit on the maternity hospital. Emergency services units rescued 4 patients,” he added.

In Kyiv, civilian infrastructure, cars, and warehouses were damaged in the barrage, Kylmenko said. Two people died and 18 were hurt in the capital, he added. Another person was killed and nine more were injured in Lviv, where an “explosion damaged an apartment building.” A separate three-story building was hit in Odessa—along with two other houses—killing two and injuring 15, according to Klymenko. He said people may still be “under the rubble.”

Other strikes in the Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia regions led to at least two more deaths.

The massive strike comes after the Biden administration announced its last package of military aid to Ukraine for the year consisting of $250 million of arms and equipment. The package includes “air defense munitions” and “other air defense system components,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Wednesday.

Ukraine has continually asked Western allies for more air defenses to protect against Russian attacks. “Russian terror must and will lose,” Zelesnky’s statement Friday concluded.

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Dan Ladden-HallBreaking News Editor

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