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 engulfed in flames.
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.
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Energy facilities, transport, and civil infrastructure were damaged elsewhere in western Ukraine.
The energy sector in the 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 an energy facility had been struck.
Zelensky, who is in Turkey for talks with his counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, called for aid from Ukraine’s allies, writing: “Every brazen attack against ordinary life shows that the pressure on Russia is insufficient. Effective sanctions and assistance to Ukraine can change this.”
Ukraine’s president had said he wanted to “intensify” peace negotiations ahead of the meeting in Ankara, but the Kremlin said no Russian representative would join.
