Russian missile barrage hits energy, railways across Ukraine / Photo: © AFP
Russian missile barrage hits energy, railways across Ukraine
Russia fired scores of missiles and drones at targets across Ukraine on Sunday, crashing into energy and rail infrastructure and residential buildings, just two days before the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion.
AFP journalists in Kyiv heard a series of blasts starting at around 4:00 am (0200 GMT), shortly after an air raid alert was issued, with the air force later widening the alert nationwide citing the threat of missiles.
"Moscow continues to invest in strikes more than in diplomacy," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commented on the attack on social media, saying that Russia launched about 50 missiles and 300 drones overnight.
"The main target of the attack was the energy sector. Ordinary residential buildings were also damaged, and there is damage to the railway."
One man was killed and a dozen more people were wounded, among them four children, in and around Kyiv, Ukraine's national police said.
AFP saw rescuers sifting through debris of a largely destroyed two-storey house in Sofiivska Borshchagivka in the Kyiv region.
Temperatures had plunged to nearly -10C when the capital was struck, with emergency services deployed across the city.
The Ukrainian capital, regularly targeted by Russian missile and drone attacks since the start of the invasion on February 24, 2022, has faced waves of overnight strikes in recent weeks as Moscow has intensified its winter assaults.
The Russian army said it had carried out a mass strike targeting facilities used by Ukraine's military, saying all targets were hit, in a standard comment for such attacks.
Authorities in Russia's western Belgorod region said one man died after a Ukrainian drone strike.
- 'Act of terrorism' -
The bombardment, which included ballistic and cruise missiles, prompted heightened vigilance across Ukraine, all the way to the western border.
Ukraine's energy ministry said consumers in six eastern and southeastern region were without power after the strikes.
Poland's Operational Command said early Sunday it was scrambling jets after detecting "long‑range aviation of the Russian Federation conducting strikes on the territory of Ukraine".
In a separate attack, an explosion rocked a store in central Lviv, a western city near the Polish border far from the front line that is largely spared the worst of the conflict.
Explosions ripped through a central shopping street at around midnight, killing a policewoman and wounding 25 people after officers responded to a reported break‑in.
Hours later, law enforcement said it had detained a Ukrainian woman suspected in carrying out the bomb attack, without providing any further details and saying that an investigation was ongoing.
"This is clearly an act of terrorism," mayor Andriy Sadovyi said of the nighttime assault.
- Ukraine 'not losing' -
Ukraine will mark four years since Russia's assault on February 24, 2022, a war that has shattered towns, uprooted millions and killed large numbers on both sides.
Moscow occupies close to a fifth of Ukrainian territory and continues to grind forward, especially in the eastern Donbas region, despite heavy losses and repeated Ukrainian strikes on logistics.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told AFP on Friday that Ukraine was "definitely not losing" the war and that victory remained the goal.
He said Ukrainian forces had clawed back about 300 square kilometres (116 square miles) of territory in recent counter‑attacks, gains AFP could not immediately verify.
If confirmed, they would be Kyiv's most significant advances since 2023.
The United States is pushing both sides to end the war, brokering several rounds of talks in recent weeks without a clear breakthrough.
(L.Møller--DTZ)
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