Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv and a dozen other Ukrainian regions overnight killed at least 25 civilians, including five children, and wounded around 100, Ukrainian officials said.
The five children were killed when a Russian missile struck an apartment building, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Three were 1 year old and another was 8.
Zelenskyy had warned the previous day that intelligence services had concluded that Russia was building up for a “massive” strike.
The deaths and damage illustrated the difficulty Ukraine has in countering Russia’s ballistic missiles and the new jet-powered drones used in Moscow’s escalating bombardments. Without ammunition for its U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, Ukraine can’t stop Russian ballistic weapons. It is racing to develop a new generation of interceptors fast enough to catch Moscow’s high-flying jet-propelled drones.
Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a long-range aerial war as their armies remain largely deadlocked on the battlefield, more than four and a half years after Moscow’s all-out invasion of its neighbor. The unrelenting aerial attacks are hurting Russia but could be ruinous for smaller Ukraine.
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