73 Russian missiles and over 650 attack drones were fired at Ukraine last night, the air force said. 30 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and about 30 drones are said to have penetrated air defenses and struck in various parts of the country.
"The window was shattered, a paving stone flew into the children's bedroom," Iryna Salikova, who took refuge in a bathtub with her three-year-old daughter, told the AP news agency.
In terms of the number of projectiles, it is the fifth largest attack since the full-scale war began in 2022, according to a Sky News compilation.
The worst-hit industrial city of Dnipro, where 16 civilians have been confirmed dead, has been hit hard. Another 40 people have been injured. Among the deaths in the city are a mother and her eight-year-old son who were pulled from the ruins of a four-story building, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha wrote on Telegram. A three-year-old boy was also pulled from the rubble and found dead.
"No doors, no windows"
In Kyiv, at least seven people have been killed and around 90 injured, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko. Several high-rise buildings in the capital have been hit, including a nine-story building that partially collapsed after being hit twice in quick succession.
65-year-old Olena Dniprovska and her 64-year-old husband Yevhen Dniprovskyj, who were both injured in the attacks on Kyiv, no longer have a home.
"The apartment is completely destroyed. No doors, no windows, no balcony," Dniprovska told AP.
"What can I say? Putin is an asshole," the husband told The Kyiv Independent.
Russia: Paradigm shift
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the attacks a "paradigm shift" in Russian warfare.
In a statement, the Defense Ministry in Moscow claims that "precision weapons" attacked military-industrial targets in the regions of Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia. In both Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, civilians have been injured, local authorities reported on Telegram.
The massive attacks come days after Ukraine warned that Russia was preparing a large-scale attack on the country.
"We know from intelligence that a new large-scale attack could come as early as this evening," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video statement on Tuesday evening.
He warned that supplies to Ukraine's air defenses are not enough to stop a significant proportion of missiles in the massive Russian attacks.
