Russian strikes kill 18, leave dozens wounded across Ukraine

AFP | Kyiv

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

Russia launched drone and missile strikes across Ukraine yesterday, killing at least 18 people and wounding over a hundred in one of the most massive air attacks of the war.

Schools, a maternity hospital, shopping arcades and blocks of flats were among the buildings hit in the barrage, said Ukrainian officials.

"Today Russia hit us with almost everything it has in its arsenal," President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Ukraine's Western allies joined the condemnation of the latest attacks. Ukraine's military said Russia had fired 158 missiles and drones on Ukraine and 114 of them had been destroyed.

Air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat told AFP that this was a "record number" and "the most massive missile attack" of the war, excluding the early days of constant bombardment. In Kyiv, 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 measuring around 3,000 square metres (32,300 square feet) caught fire. There was a strong smell of burning plastic as firefighters wearing oxygen masks tackled the blaze and a huge column of black smoke billowed into the sky, an AFP reporter saw.

There were believed to be 10 people trapped under the rubble, said the head of the city's military administration, Sergiy Popko. AFP journalists also saw smoke near the building of Lukyanivska metro station close to the city centre. Popko said the metro station had been damaged but it reopened later in the day.