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Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described Russia’s latest attack against Ukraine as “deliberate, calculated and wicked”, after six people were killed and dozens injured in a wave of night-time strikes across the capital Kyiv.
Shortly after midnight air raid sirens sounded and residents made their way to shelters or lay between two walls in their apartments. Soon afterwards the whine of Shahed drones could be heard in the sky, with heavy machine gun fire from Ukrainian air defences.
Ukraine’s president said the country was hit by 430 drones and 18 missiles. The dead were at home in an apartment block on Kyiv’s left bank when it was hit. Dozens of other buildings were damaged, including the Azerbaijani embassy which was struck by falling debris.
“It was scary. Our windows shook. I thought: ‘Oh God, this is the end,” Bruce Avalord, an American longtime resident, said, speaking outside a wrecked multistorey residential compound. A drone careened into its upper levels at 3am, witnesses said, exploding in a bright orange fireball.
On Friday a bulldozer scooped up glass and bricks which had fallen on the pavement in the Sviatoshynskyi district. Owners checked over broken cars. “There are no military targets here, just civilians. The Russians want people to beg the government to capitulate. The tactic won’t work. Ukrainians are resilient,” Avalord said.
Photograph: Global Images Ukraine/Getty Images
Another local, Valentina, said she threw on her clothes and hid in her ninth-floor corridor next to the lift, staying there until dawn. “The explosions woke me up. It was very loud. There were booms everywhere. I was messaging friends to see if they were OK,” she recalled.
Zelenskyy called on Europe and the US to supply additional air defence systems and to impose further sanctions on Russia’s oil industry. He said Ukraine was taking its own measures to prevent attacks by hitting Russian energy targets using home-produced deep-strike missiles.
He disclosed that “Long Neptune” missiles had been used for the first time, after a successful Ukrainian aerial operation on the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, an important oil export facility. He called the attack “our entirely just response to Russia’s ongoing terror.”
During his last trip to the White House in October, Zelenskyy asked Donald Trump for long-range Tomahawk missiles. Speaking to the Guardian last week he said the meeting – contrary to reports – was a success. So far, though, the US president has refused to provide the weapons, amid warnings from the Kremlin of retaliation.
Oleksandra Matviichuk, Ukraine’s Nobel peace prize laureate, called on EU countries to use their air power to defend Ukraine’s vulnerable skies. She said Trump needed to deliver Tomahawks in order to stop enemy missiles before they were launched from Russian military airfields.
“Our house shook the whole night, but my family is alive. Trump promised that when he becomes president, he will end the Russian war against Ukraine. Putin is demonstratively obstructing all his efforts even simply to cease fire.
“Now it is also Trump’s war. If he does not show strength, he will go down in history as a weak president,” she warned on social media.
Ukraine’s prime minister Yulia Svyrydenko described Friday’s bombardment as “unprecedented”. She said about 30 residential buildings were targeted. Five people were taken to hospital, including a pregnant woman. Several children were hurt.
There was widespread international condemnation. Germany’s defence minister Boris Pistorious said Vladimir Putin had shown “contempt for humanity”.
Russia has upgraded its Iranian-designed kamikaze drones, so they travel faster and are harder to shoot down. Ukraine has responded by developing new drone interceptors. While effective, they are not sufficient to cope with the combined drone and missile swarms now being sent by Moscow.
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said: “The Russians are hitting residential buildings. There are a great many damaged multistorey apartment buildings in practically every district.”
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the capital’s heating system had sustained damage, with service interrupted in one district. He warned of possible disruptions to power and water supplies. Most of the country is experiencing frequent blackouts after a series of Russian attacks this autumn on energy infrastructure.
In the Darnytskyi district, debris landed in the yard of a residential building and on the grounds of an educational facility. A car caught fire after being hit by falling fragments.
In the Dniprovskyi district, debris damaged three apartment buildings, a private household and caused a fire in an open area. In the Podilskyi district, five residential buildings and a nonresidential structure were damaged. Several fires were caused by falling debris elsewhere in the city.
The Kremlin’s latest onslaught came as EU officials warned this week that Ukraine must continue to crack down on corruption after a significant kickbacks scandal that has put top government figures under scrutiny. But Brussels also offered assurances that aid will continue to flow to Kyiv.
On Wednesday Zelenskyy moved to contain public outrage by firing two ministers who were accused of involvement in a large-scale bribery scheme. They deny wrongdoing. He also imposed sanctions on Timur Minduch, a friend and former business partner, who fled Kyiv hours before anti-corruption investigators raided his Kyiv home.
