Russia’s first large-scale air attacks in nearly two months come as Ukraine prepares for a counteroffensive.
At least 12 people have been killed and several injured after Russian forces attacked cities and regions across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, in a series of night-time air raids.
Rescue workers were searching for survivors on Friday, hours after the first large-scale assault in months.
In the central city of Uman, at least 10 people were killed and 17 wounded when a missile hit an apartment building, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
In Dnipro, city’s Mayor Borys Filatov said, a woman and a young child were killed in the attacks in the early hours of Friday but gave no further details.
“No more words,” he wrote.
Videos shared on social media showed part of the building in Uman, a city of 80,000 people in the Cherkasy oblast, up in flames with rubble underneath.
“We have two cruise missile hits on Uman; a residential building and a warehouse building,” Cherkasy Governor Ihor Taburets wrote on the Telegram messaging app. “We are finding out the consequences.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram that this “Russian terror must face a fair response from Ukraine and the world”.
It was not clear what Russia was targeting, although it has regularly struck civilian infrastructure, particularly energy facilities throughout the winter.
Beginning late last year, Russia launched such attacks roughly weekly, though they had tapered off as winter ended, with Western countries saying Moscow had used up much of its long-range missile arsenal in a failed bid to freeze Ukrainian cities.
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