Russia Launches Massive Drone and Missile Barrage on Ukraine, Killing at Least Eight

Kyiv: Russia launched a large-scale aerial assault on Ukraine overnight into Wednesday, firing waves of drones and missiles that killed at least eight people and damaged residential buildings, industrial facilities and infrastructure across several regions, Ukrainian officials said.

According to local authorities, two people were killed in the capital, Kyiv, four in the northern city of Pryluky, and two in the central Poltava region. Emergency crews worked through the early hours to extinguish fires and search damaged sites.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia deployed 130 drones and 48 cruise missiles, along with ballistic missiles, in the attack. Ukrainian air defence units reported that they had shot down 161 aerial targets.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had carried out a “massive strike” on military-industrial facilities in Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions, using high-precision weapons launched from land, sea and air, as well as drones. The ministry stated that its targets included sites where the Ukrainian defence company Fire Point produces and stores its Flamingo cruise missiles and medium- and long-range drones, located in Kyiv and in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kharkiv regions.

The overnight barrage is the latest in a series of large-scale Russian aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities, as both sides continue to exchange long-range strikes more than four and a half years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.