The aftermath of the Russian attack on Ukraine’s western Lviv region. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
Russia launched a massive missile and drone attack on Ukrainian cities on Sunday morning, killing at least five people, Ukrainian officials reported.
The large-scale Russian attack on Ukraine is the first of its kind since the widespread strikes launched by Russia on 26 August, which killed three people.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Telegram that Russia’s “combined attack” had targeted all Ukrainian regions overnight Saturday and on Sunday morning, targeting energy infrastructure across the country and causing power cuts in some areas. The attack involved “about 120 missiles and 90 drones in total”, over 140 of which he said had been intercepted by Ukrainian air defences.
Two people were killed and six more were injured in a drone strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv, Zelensky wrote. One person was killed in the country’s western Lviv region, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reported, while two others were killed in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, regional Governor Oleh Kiper wrote.
The Russian Defence Ministry confirmed the attack on “critical energy infrastructure facilities” that “ensured the operation” of Ukraine’s military enterprises, adding that “all planned targets were hit”.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X on Sunday that the strike was “one of the largest” Russian air attacks on Ukraine to date. “This is war criminal Putin’s true response to all those who called and visited him recently. We need peace through strength, not appeasement,” Sybiha stressed.
Sybiha’s statement followed backlash from Ukrainian officials to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s first call with Vladimir Putin for nearly two years on Friday, which Zelensky described as having opened “Pandora’s box”.
“This is exactly what Putin has wanted for a long time: it is crucial for him to weaken his isolation. Russia’s isolation,” Zelensky said in his evening address to the nation on Friday.
Former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday that he struggled to see how the call, which he called a “false start”, could be justified. “Putin showcased to the world that his strategy is working — the West will eventually bow its head under the cover of urging him to stop the war, which he is not going to do”.
