At least 25 people have been killed and dozens injured after Russia carried out one of its largest recent combined missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight, hitting residential areas and energy infrastructure in multiple regions.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the assault involved more than 470 attack drones and 48 missiles of various types, including both cruise and ballistic systems. He reported that the strikes damaged energy and transport facilities as well as other civilian infrastructure.
The highest confirmed death toll is in the western city of Ternopil, where missiles struck multi-storey residential buildings. As of 11:00 CET, sixteen people had been reported killed and dozens more injured, while emergency services continued to search the rubble amid concerns that others may still be trapped.
Images from the scene show a high-rise block with its upper floors largely destroyed, fires burning in several apartments and large plumes of smoke rising above the area. Ukrainian officials said firefighters and rescue workers were operating throughout the night and morning, working to extinguish blazes and clear debris.
The attacks also hit other parts of western Ukraine. In Lviv region, regional governor Maksym Kozytskyi reported damage to an energy facility and an industrial site, though no casualties were immediately recorded there. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said Russia was “once again attacking our energy infrastructure” and announced emergency power cuts in a number of regions as a result of the strikes.
Further south, energy infrastructure in Ivano-Frankivsk region was also targeted. Zelenskyy said three people were wounded there, including two children. Across the wider country, he reported injuries in Donetsk region and stated that Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions had also come under attack during the night.
The overnight barrage followed a separate large-scale strike on Kharkiv on the previous evening. Zelenskyy said “dozens” of people in the city were wounded in that attack, including children, and that energy, transport and other civilian facilities had been hit. Local authorities reported significant damage to buildings and further disruption to power and public services.
In a statement posted on social media, the president said that repeated attacks on residential areas and civilian infrastructure showed that existing international pressure on Russia was not sufficient. He called for tougher sanctions and renewed appeals for additional air defence capabilities, including more missiles, extra systems, greater capacity for Ukraine’s combat aviation and increased production of drones for defensive use.
Zelenskyy argued that strengthening Ukraine’s air defences is essential to reducing the impact of such attacks, saying that Russia must “be held accountable for what it has done” and that Ukraine should focus on everything that enables it to shoot down missiles, neutralise drones and repel assaults along the front. His remarks echo repeated Ukrainian requests over recent months for partners to accelerate deliveries of air defence munitions ahead of winter.
The strikes also had consequences beyond Ukraine’s borders. In neighbouring Poland, authorities temporarily closed the airports in Rzeszów and Lublin in the south-east of the country and scrambled Polish and allied aircraft as a precaution while the attack was under way, amid concern that missiles or drones could again violate NATO airspace.
The latest wave is part of a pattern of large-scale Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power system and cities as colder weather approaches, similar to previous campaigns against the energy grid in late 2024 and renewed high-intensity strikes earlier this year, including the deadly April attack on Kyiv. Ukrainian officials have warned that repeated damage to generating and transmission facilities increases the risk of prolonged blackouts in the coming months.
With search and rescue operations still under way in Ternopil and assessments of the wider damage ongoing, Ukrainian authorities have not yet provided a final casualty figure. However, officials said the number is expected to rise as emergency services work through the affected sites and more information becomes available from the regions hit overnight.
