At least 20 hurt in Russian strikes on Ukrainian capital

Russian drone and missile assaults have left at least 20 people injured in Kyiv, as residential buildings were damaged and blackouts were caused by strikes across Ukraine, authorities said.

A child was also killed in separate attacks in the south-east of the country.

In the heart of the Ukrainian capital, rescue crews pulled more than 20 people out of a 17-storey apartment building as flames engulfed the sixth and seventh floors.

Five people were taken to hospital, while others received first aid at the scene, authorities said.

“Everyone was sleeping and suddenly there was such a sharp sound; it was clear that something was flying. I managed to pull the blanket over my head, and then the strike hit – it blew out the windows, and the glass flew almost all the way to the door,” resident Tetiana Lemishevska, 61, told The Associated Press.

“The fire was on the sixth or seventh floor at first, and the flames went up quickly and spread to other floors. So all the people who could left the building without knowing how it would end,” she said.

The Russian strikes had targeted civilian and energy infrastructure as Ukraine prepared for falling winter temperatures, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on social media.

Prime minister Yuliia Svyrydenko also described the attack as “one of the largest concentrated strikes” against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the attack knocked out power on both sides of the city, divided by the Dnipro River, while Ukraine’s biggest electricity operator, DTEK, said that repair work was already under way on multiple damaged thermal plants.

Ukraine’s national energy operator, Ukrenergo, reported power outages in Kyiv and the wider region, as well as in the Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Cherkasy regions.

The energy sector has been a key battleground since Russia launched its all-out invasion of neighbouring Ukraine on in February 2022.

Each year, Russia has tried to cripple the Ukrainian power grid before the bitter winter season, hoping to erode public morale.

Ukraine’s winter runs from late October through March, with January and February the coldest months.

Ukraine’s air force said the latest Russian barrage included 465 strike and decoy drones, as well as 32 missiles of various types. Air defences intercepted or jammed 405 drones and 15 missiles, it said.

In the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, residential areas and energy sites were pounded with attack drones, missiles and guided bombs, killing a seven-year-old boy and wounding his parents and others, military administration officials said.

A hydroelectric plant in the area was taken offline as a precaution, they said.