Kiev:
A wave of Russian attacks has killed at least 10 people and injured dozens across Ukraine, officials said Friday, with the toll expected to rise.
“Almost fifteen people were injured. Four were killed” in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Governor Sergiy Lysak said, while other local authorities reported two deaths in Kiev, two others in Odessa; one death in Kharkov and one in Lviv.
AFP reporters in Kiev heard several powerful explosions and saw thick black smoke rising from a warehouse in the early hours of Friday.
“We haven't seen so much red on our monitors in a long time,” said Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force, explaining that Russian forces had first launched a wave of suicide drones, followed by missiles.
“People have been killed today by Russian missiles fired at civilian facilities and civilian buildings,” presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.
“We are doing everything we can to strengthen our air shield. But the world must see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror,” he said on Telegram.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the capital's air defenses were working intensively and seven people had been hospitalized.
A metro station, whose platforms were used as a shelter against air raids, was damaged, he said.
Sergiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said a warehouse covering an area of about 3,000 square meters was on fire in the northern Podil district.
“There are many injured, the number is being clarified,” he said.
In other areas of the city, an uninhabited multi-story apartment building also caught fire and a residential home was damaged, Popko said.
– Maternity hospital affected –
In the central Shevchenko district, a residential building was damaged and there was also a fire in a warehouse, probably injuring six, Popko said.
Klitschko wrote on social media that three more people appeared to be under the rubble of the warehouse, while three others had been rescued.
The overnight attacks came days after Ukraine struck a Russian warship in the occupied Crimean port of Feodosia, in a major setback for the Russian navy.
Drones and missiles hit at least five other Ukrainian cities on Friday, including Kharkiv in the northeast, Lviv in the west, Dnipro in the east and Odesa in the south, the cities' mayors and police said.
“So far we have counted 22 strikes in different districts of Kharkov,” Mayor Igor Terekhov said on television.
“There are currently seven injured people in hospital. Unfortunately, one person has died.”
In Lviv, Governor Maksym Kozytsky said that “one person was killed and three injured.”
In Dnipro, the mayor, Borys Filatov, said there were injuries and deaths. The Health Ministry said a maternity hospital in the city was “severely damaged”.
– Crucial US support –
A high-rise building caught fire in Odesa's southern port after being hit by debris from a downed drone, the city's mayor said.
“As a result of another enemy attack, one of the high-rise buildings was damaged. The fire was extinguished immediately,” Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said on social media.
Ukraine's Southern Command said fourteen attack drones were destroyed in the south of the country and no casualties were reported.
The attacks came after the Kremlin acknowledged on Tuesday that a Ukrainian missile attack had damaged one of its warships.
On Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the United States for releasing the last remaining package of weapons available to Ukraine under the existing authorization, as there is uncertainty over further aid to his war-torn country.
Zelensky had warned that any change in policy by the US – Kiev's main backer – could have a strong impact on the course of the war.
“I thank President Joe Biden, Congress and the American people for the $250 million military aid package announced yesterday,” Zelensky said on social media.
In an interview published Friday, Christian Freuding, a German general who oversees the German military's support for Kiev, said Russia has been seriously weakened but is showing greater “resilience” than Western allies expected at the start of the war .
“We may not have seen, or did not want to see, that they are in a position to remain supplied by allies,” he told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)