Russian forces have launched a major drone and missile attack on Kyiv overnight, killing 13 people, in what the city’s mayor has described as the “most massive attack” on the Ukrainian capital.
Vitaly Klitschko declared Friday a day of mourning and said around 90 people were injured. He said an ambulance station was among the places hit in the strikes.
Although previous attacks have caused more victims or seen more weapons deployed, this latest barrage hit locations over a very wide area of Kyiv.
Several neighborhoods were evacuated as strikes rocked buildings throughout the city, hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Russia was preparing an attack.
Russia said its forces hit what they called military plants in retaliation against attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure. Ukraine accused Moscow of targeting civilian areas and said it would be wrong to equate the actions of the “aggressor and a country defending itself”.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 74 missiles and 496 drones overnight, mainly targeting the capital.
While the country’s air defences were able to repel most of these, 25 ballistics missiles and 12 drones struck 33 locations.