Kiev, Ukraine:
Russia launched drone and missile strikes across Ukraine on Friday, killing at least 18 people and wounding more than a hundred in one of the most massive airstrikes of the war.
Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and apartment buildings were among the buildings hit by the barrage, Ukrainian officials said.
“Today Russia has hit us with almost everything it has in its arsenal,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Ukraine's Western allies have joined in condemning the latest attacks.
The Ukrainian military said Russia had fired 158 missiles and drones at Ukraine and that 114 of them had been destroyed.
Air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat told AFP this was a “record number” and “the most massive rocket attack” of the war, apart from the early days of continuous bombing.
Ukraine is urging Western allies to maintain military support after the United States released its latest arms package under existing agreements, which have not yet been renewed by Congress.
Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said Kiev “needs more support and strength to stop this terror.” U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink said the strikes showed that “Ukraine needs financing now.”
Russia attempted to overwhelm Ukraine's air defenses in most major cities, launching a wave of Shahed attack drones, followed by missiles of numerous types fired from aircraft and from Russian-controlled territory.
Officials said buildings were damaged in six cities, including warehouses, a shopping center and a maternity hospital.
In Kiev, AFP reporters heard several powerful explosions in the early hours of Friday.
The city's mayor Vitali Klitschko said three bodies had been recovered from a warehouse hit by a strike in the central Shevchenko district.
In the city's northern Podil district, another warehouse of about 3,000 square meters (32,300 square feet) caught fire.
There was a strong smell of burning plastic as firefighters wearing oxygen masks battled the blaze and a huge column of black smoke billowed into the air, an AFP reporter saw.
Ten people are believed to be trapped under the rubble, the head of the city's military administration, Sergiy Popko, said.
AFP journalists also saw smoke at the Lukyanivska metro station building, near the city center. Popko said the subway station was damaged but reopened later in the day.
The station is close to the Artyom weapons factory, which Russia says was targeted early in the war.
Maternity hospital struck
Friday's attacks targeted at least six Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv in the northeast, Lviv in the west, Dnipro in the east and Odessa in the south.
In Dnipro, the Health Ministry said a maternity hospital was “severely damaged” but that staff and patients had managed to take shelter in time.
The exterior of the three-storey building was scorched black and its windows blown out, an AFP photographer saw.
A shopping center in the city was also hit and caught fire. An explosion tore a hole in the facade of the large shopping center and left the interior black with smoke.
Six people were killed and 28 were injured, said Sergiy Lysak, the head of the military administration of the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Three people were also killed in the southern region of Odesa and 26 were injured, prosecutors said.
Firefighters were extinguishing a blaze in a high-rise apartment building, an AFP photographer saw. Smoke poured from a hole blown in the facade, the air was thick with dust and there was dirt on the ground.
Distressed local people looked on and one family hugged each other.
In Lviv, one person was killed and 15 injured by drones and missiles that damaged high-rise apartment buildings and two schools, the Interior Ministry said.
An image released by emergency services showed window frames in a nine-storey apartment building blown away.
The eastern city of Kharkiv suffered about 20 attacks, killing three civilian company employees and wounding 11, said Oleg Sinegubov, the head of the city's military administration.
Footage released by emergency services shows residents sweeping up shards of glass from blown-out windows at a cancer treatment clinic. There was a crater from an explosion in the nearby forest, an AFP photographer saw.
In Zaporizhia on the Dnipro River, four people were killed and 12 injured after attacks on industrial and residential areas, the Interior Ministry said.
Crucial American support
On Thursday, Zelensky thanked the United States for releasing the last remaining arms package under the existing authorization, amid uncertainty over further U.S. aid to his war-torn country.
“To defend freedom and security not only in Ukraine and Europe, but also in the United States, we must continue to respond to continued Russian aggression,” he said.
Zelensky has warned that any change in policy by the US – Kiev's main backer – could have a strong impact on the course of the war.
The French Foreign Ministry said they were part of Russia's “terror strategy” and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “We must continue to support Ukraine – for as long as necessary.”
Josep Borrell, the European Union's foreign policy chief, described it as “yet another cowardly and indiscriminate” attack on civilians.
The UN humanitarian envoy for Ukraine, Denise Brown, said the attacks were “yet another unacceptable example of the horrific reality” faced by Ukrainians.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)