Nine people have been killed and dozens more wounded in a Russian attack on the western city of Ternopil, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Nine-storey blocks of flats were hit in the strikes, as Russia fired more than 470 drones and 47 missiles at Ukraine overnight in a “brazen attack”, Zelensky said.
Three districts of Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv, were also hit by a massive drone attack which injured more than 30 people, including children. Photos posted online showed buildings and cars ablaze.
Power cuts are affecting a number of regions across the country, Ukraine’s energy ministry said.
The attack early on Wednesday was one of the deadliest on western Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
Zelensky said there had been “significant destruction” in Ternopil, adding that people could be trapped under the rubble.
Energy facilities, transport and civil infrastructure were damaged elsewhere in western Ukraine.
The energy sector in Ivano-Frankivsk region was also attacked, and two of the three injured were children.
Critical infrastructure and energy were hit in the Lviv region, Zelensky said, while the head of the region said a energy facility had been struck.
The Russian strikes came a day after Ukraine’s military said it had fired US-supplied longer-range Atacms missiles at military targets inside Russia, the first time they have admitted using the Atacms on Russian soil.
Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of firing four of the missiles at the southern city of Voronezh but said they had all been shot down by air defences.
Meanwhile, Zelensky is heading to the Turkish capital Ankara, in an attempt to revive a US bid to end the war. He will hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid reports that President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has been working on a plan with Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev.
The Kremlin said no Russian representative would be joining the talks in Ankara.
In a separate development, Romania’s defence ministry said a Russian drone had flown for about 8km (5 miles) through its airspace in the early hours of Wednesday. The drone then crossed into Ukraine and Moldova before returning to Romania, it said.
Romanian and German air force planes were scrambled in response to the incursion and the defence ministry said it was unclear where the drone had come down.
Poland also deployed jets early on Wednesday and temporarily closed two airports in the southeast in response to the strikes in western Ukraine.
As the fourth anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches next February, Moscow and Kyiv remain fundamentally opposed in their views of how to end the war.
Earlier this month Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia’s conditions for a peace deal had not changed since Putin laid them out in 2024.
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