Residents of the capital Kyiv were urged to move to air-raid shelters early on Friday as sirens sounded across the city, a day after Russia carried out its biggest ever airstrikes on Ukrainian cities, according to news agency Reuters. Were.
The Kyiv city government issued an alert on its Telegram app channel shortly after 2 a.m. about air raid sirens and asked residents to move to shelters. Oleksky Kuleba, governor of Kyiv regionSaid that a “drone attack” was underway.
A Reuters witness 20 km (12 mi) south of Kyiv heard multiple explosions and anti-aircraft fire.
In a video address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the air command in central, southern, eastern and western Ukraine on Thursday repelled 54 Russian missiles and 11 drones.
Zelensky acknowledged that most regions are facing power outages ukraine, Areas that were “particularly hard hit” by the power loss included the capitals Kyiv, Odessa and Kherson in the south and surrounding regions, and the region around Lviv near the western border with Poland, Reuters reported.
“But this is nothing compared to what could have happened if it were not for our heroic anti-aircraft troops and air defense,” he said.
A video footage captured by Reuters showed emergency crews wading through the smoldering rubble of residential homes in Kyiv destroyed by an explosion and smoke trails of missiles in the sky.
Earlier, officials said more than 120 missiles were fired during Thursday’s attack.
About 18 residential buildings and 10 critical infrastructure installations were destroyed in the latest attacks, the Defense Ministry said in a statement, Reuters reported.
Energy infrastructure has been targeted by Russian airstrikes in recent months ukraineThat has left millions without power and heating in often freezing temperatures in the war-torn country.
(With Reuters inputs)
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