Russia unleashes massive overnight drone and missile attack on Kyiv

Russia unleashed a major missile and drone barrage on Kyiv early Friday, killing six people, leaving gaping holes in apartment buildings and starting fires as the sound of explosions boomed across the city and lighted up the night sky.

- By HANNA ARHIROVA, Samya KULLAB AND VASILISA STEPANENKO

THE VIEW from an apartment destroyed by a Russian drone in Kyiv's Dniprovskyi district in Ukraine.

(Evgen KOTENKO Ukrinform/NurPhoto)

A pregnant woman was among at least 35 people wounded, Ukrainian authorities said.

Russia used at least 430 drones and 18 missiles in the nighttime attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Russia has waged a devastating aerial campaign against Ukraine since its all-out invasion of its neighbor nearly four years ago. U.S.-led diplomatic efforts this year to stop the fighting have so far come to nothing.

Friday’s aerial assault, which also targeted Odesa in the south and Kharkiv in the northeast, was mostly aimed at Kyiv, the capital, where drones and missiles smashed into high-rise apartment blocks, according to Zelensky.

It was “a specially calculated attack to cause as much harm as possible to people and civilians,” he said ina post on Telegram.

Moscow denies targeting civilian areas, with the Russian Defense Ministry saying Friday that it carried out an overnight strike on Ukraine’s “military-industrial and energy facilities.” Ukrainian officials scoff at those claims, showing repeated damage to homes and public buildings.

The attack was the biggest on Kyiv in almost three weeks. Most recent Russian aerial attacks have aimed at electricity infrastructure around the country ahead of the bitter winter months.

Eight of the capital's 10 districts reported damage. In the wider Kyiv region, Russian strikes damaged critical infrastructure, the head of the regional military administration, | Mykola Kalashnyk, said.