Heavy Russian attack on Ukraine kills 16, injures dozens, officials say

Sixteen people were killed in a heavy overnight Russian missile and drone attack that struck a residential tower block in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, officials said Wednesday.

At least 64 more, including 14 children, were injured, the Ukraine national police said on Telegram. The numbers were adjusted upward after an earlier update from Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.

The overnight strikes on Ukraine targeted energy and transport infrastructure, forcing emergency power cuts in a number of regions in frigid temperatures.

The upper floors of the residential building in Ternopil were torn away in the attack. Black smoke poured upward, while an orange glow burned though the haze from a fire in the tower block.

Russia launched more than 470 drones and 48 missiles in the overnight attack, officials said.

Poland, a NATO member state bordering western Ukraine, temporarily closed Rzeszow and Lublin airports in the southeast of the country and scrambled Polish and allied aircraft as a precaution to safeguard its airspace.

Residential towers hit

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed multi-storey residential buildings had been hit in Ternopil, and said others may be trapped under the rubble.

He urged allies to increase pressure on Russia to end its nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine, including by providing Kyiv with more air defence missiles.

“Every brazen attack against ordinary life shows that the pressure on Russia is insufficient. Effective sanctions and assistance to Ukraine can change this,” Zelenskyy said on X.