Ukraine war: Russia launched large-scale air strikes across Ukraine on Friday nigh when people were sleeping. At least 25 people were killed in the first large-scale air strikes in nearly two months.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year in what Ukraine and its Western allies call an unprovoked war of conquest.
A missile hit a residential apartment hit in the central town of Uman and engulfed it in flames. The building was reduced to rubble. Firefighters and rescue workers were searching for survivors and bodies as anxious people stood by.
Large-scale destruction
“My neighbours are gone. No one is left,” said Serhii Lubivskyi (58), who survived inside a flat on the seventh floor. He was rescued by firefighters from the balcony where he escaped with his wife after the explosion blocked their front door.
An estimated 109 people lived in the block that was hit and 27 flats completely destroyed. Officials said at least 23 civilians were killed, including four children.
Lubivskyi wept as he looked up at the smouldering gaps in the building where adjacent flats had been blasted away.
“An elderly woman, her daughter and two grandchildren lived on the ninth floor. They are gone. A man with his son lived on the eighth floor. They are gone. A woman with her daughter lived on the seventh floor. They are gone. A young family lived on the sixth floor, their son was lucky … he is alive.”
Missile attack in Dnipro city
In the southeastern city of Dnipro, a missile killed a two-year-old child and a 31-year-old woman, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said. Video released by the authorities showed a blackened hole where a missile had crashed through an apartment window.
Moscow said it had targeted locations of Ukrainian reserve troops and had struck them successfully, preventing them from reaching the front. It supplied no evidence to support this.
Russia had launched missile attacks in early March before this.
The capital Kyiv was also rocked by explosions in the early hours, as were the central cities of Kremenchuk and Poltava, and Mykolaiv in the south. Two people were wounded in the town of Ukrayinka just south of Kyiv, officials said.
Kyiv is preparing a counteroffensive using hundreds of tanks and armoured vehicles sent by the West. “As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it,” Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov told an online news briefing.
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