Five people have died and tens of thousands have lost electricity in Ukraine following heavy Russian missile and drone attacks overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has reported.
Four members of a family, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed by a strike in the village of Lapaivka as attacks primarily focused on the western Lviv region.
One individual also lost their life in Zaporizhzhia. Russia launched over 50 missiles and about 500 attack drones, according to Zelensky. Ukraine’s air force estimated the total at 549.
Russia’s defence ministry announced it had successfully executed a “massive” strike on Ukrainian military and infrastructure targets.
Ukraine’s neighbour, Poland, scrambled fighter aircraft to secure the safety of Polish airspace, the country’s military confirmed. Allied Nato planes were also deployed.
Lviv had gone through hours of attacks, which resulted in suspending public transportation services and the disconnection of electrical supplies.
Maksym Kozytskyi, the head of the Lviv region, described it as the biggest attack on the region since Russia started its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. According to him, approximately 163 drones and missiles were seen in the region.
Kozytskyi added that the weapons hit residential structures, hospitals, civilian industrial plants, and gas transportation facilities.
He further stated that the attack was “particularly cynical” because it came as Ukrainians usually start heating their homes.
Another relative of those killed in Lapaivka got hurt, as did two neighbors.
The Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, and Kirovohrad regions were also attacked, Zelensky added.
He added: “We require greater protection and quicker implementation of all defense agreements, particularly on air defense, to deprive this aerial terror of any sense.”
A unilateral ceasefire in the skies is within reach – and it is that very thing which could lead the way to true diplomacy.”
Russia continues to intensify its attacks against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure as winter approaches.
Kyiv’s ministry of energy said that overnight shelling inflicted damage on Chernihiv, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia.
In the latter, overnight Russian shelling left “over 73,000 consumers off the power grid” following a strike on a power station, regional leader Ivan Fedorov said.
A woman died and several others were wounded in Zaporizhzhia.
A 16-year-old woman was one of the medical aid recipients, Fedorov said, publishing photos purportedly depicting a partially ruined multi-storey building and a charred vehicle from the scene of the attack.
Emergency power outages were introduced in Chernihiv and Sumy, the energy ministry said.
Lviv mayor Andriy Sadovyi reported that some of the city, 70 km (43 miles) inside the border with Poland, had no electricity, and that the city’s air defense systems were busy fending off first a drone attack and then an attack by a Russian missile.
Ukraine’s air force reported it destroyed eight Russian missiles directly and 57 drones in 20 different locations throughout the country, as well as debris from destroyed arms in six different places.
It stated that 478 missiles and drones were shot down, and six failed to reach their targets.
Russian troops have controlled the majority of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, including Luhansk and Donetsk, since the beginning of its invasion.
Russia currently controls around a fifth of Ukrainian territory, including the Crimean peninsula, which it annexed in 2014.
The Russian assaults came days after a US official said the US would support Ukraine launching strikes deep inside Russian territory.
In response to a question by Fox News on US President Donald Trump‘s stand on the issue, US Special Envoy to Ukraine Keith Kellogg replied: “The answer is yes, use the capability to strike deep, there are no such things as sanctuaries.”
Ukraine has attacked targets within Russia again and again, but has been constrained by the range of the weapons it has been provided.
There have been increasing attacks on Russian oil refineries lately, causing petrol shortages in some areas of the country.
In Russia, air defense units shot down 32 Ukrainian drones overnight, state-run news agency RIA reported Sunday, quoting figures from Russia’s defense ministry.
