Russia fired 50 missiles and 297 drones at Ukraine overnight, targeting Kyiv and energy facilities across the country, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday. Air defences shot down 33 missiles and 274 drones, the air force reported. At least one person died in the Kyiv region. Explosions also killed a 23-year-old police officer in Lviv after devices detonated when officers responded to a call.
The overnight assault struck the capital, the Black Sea port of Odesa and regions in central and eastern Ukraine, according to the military. President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X that Dnipro, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Poltava and Sumy also faced attacks.
“Moscow continues to invest in strikes more than in diplomacy,” Zelensky wrote. He added that Russia had launched more than 1,300 drones, 1,400 guided aerial bombs and 96 missiles at Ukraine this week.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia focused on energy infrastructure. Regional authorities reported damage to power facilities and outages in several areas. Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said a drone strike hit energy infrastructure in the region during the night and caused fires. Emergency crews extinguished the blazes.
In the Kyiv region, Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said one person died and five suffered severe injuries. Damage affected five districts, with more than a dozen houses hit. Reuters reporters in Kyiv heard explosions around 4am as air raid alerts sounded across the city. Residents sought shelter in metro stations.
Ukraine’s military administration in Kyiv said Russia used ballistic weapons in the attack. Officials reported damage to residential buildings and railway infrastructure.
Moscow denies targeting civilians and states that attacks on infrastructure aim to weaken Ukraine’s war effort.
The wave of strikes came two days before the fourth anniversary of Russia’s full scale invasion, which began on 24 February 2022. Diplomatic efforts led by the United States have yet to secure a breakthrough. Talks in Geneva on 17 and 18 February ended without agreement.
In Lviv, two explosive devices detonated shortly after midnight when police responded to a reported break in at a shop in the city centre.
The National Police of Ukraine said officers arrived at the scene when the first device exploded. “Later, when a second crew arrived, another explosion went off,” the force said on Telegram. Police stated that the devices had been planted in waste bins.
The blasts killed 23-year-old officer Viktoria Shpylka. The national police said she had begun her service at the start of the invasion in the Kherson region. Twenty five people suffered injuries, including six law enforcement officers in a serious condition. Eleven people required hospital treatment.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said officers detained the suspect, described by the police as a 33-year-old woman from the Rivne region, on suspicion of carrying out the attack. “We are identifying other persons involved in committing this crime,” he wrote on Telegram.
Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovyi described the incident as a terror attack in a statement on Facebook. The regional prosecutor’s office opened an investigation into what it called an act of terrorism that led to grave consequences.
The exchanges extended beyond Ukraine’s borders. Authorities in Russia’s Udmurt Republic said Ukrainian drones struck an industrial site, injuring 11 people. Sergei Bagin, the regional health minister, said three people were hospitalised. Alexander Brechalov, head of the republic, confirmed that drones hit one of the region’s facilities but did not name the site.
The Russian Telegram channel ASTRA reported that footage suggested the target was the Votkinsk Machine Building Plant, which produces Iskander ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles. Ukraine’s military later confirmed a strike on the Votkinsk facility. “A fire was recorded on the territory of the object. The results are getting real,” the army said on Facebook.
On the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s defence ministry said its troops had taken control of the village of Karpivka in the Donetsk region, according to the RIA news agency.
HT