At least 25 people were killed in a Russian drone and missile attack overnight that hit apartment buildings in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.
About 80 others were wounded as Russia fired 476 drones and 48 missiles at Ukraine, striking energy and transport infrastructure and forcing emergency power cuts in a number of regions in frigid temperatures.
The upper floors of a residential building in Ternopil were torn away in the attack. Smoke poured upwards as fire crews tried to douse flames, while devastated residents huddled outside waiting for news of loved ones.
“It seems that from the ninth to the first floor, this fiery lava engulfed our people. They did not have time to escape from their flats because everything was on fire,” interior minister Ihor Klymenko said in televised comments.
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Officials said three children were among the dead and that the death toll could rise, with about 25 people still missing.
Oksana Kobel hoped her son would be found alive. He had been in a ninth-floor apartment at the time of the attack.
“I went to work, heard the explosions. I called him and said ‘Bohdan, go to the shelter, get dressed.’ He answered ‘Mom, I am already up, everything will be fine’,” she 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.
Russia launched the attack as president Volodymyr Zelenskiy travelled for talks in Turkey intended to help revive peace negotiations with Russia, after his short tour to European capitals.
Mr Zelenskiy 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,” he said on X.
Ukraine will “bring Russia’s horrific murder ... to the spotlight of tomorrow’s UN Security Council meeting”, foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said.
Energy infrastructure was hit in seven Ukrainian regions, officials said. Restrictions were placed on power usage for consumers across the country.
A Reuters witness in the western city of Lviv reported hearing explosions and the northwestern city of Kharkiv came under fire. Residents took cover in metro stations far away in Kyiv.
Russia, which denies deliberately targeting civilians, said it had launched air strikes in response to what it called “terrorist attacks” on Russian territories.
Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday it had attacked military targets in Russia with the missiles.
Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskiy held talks with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday and was due to meet US army officials in Kyiv on Thursday, as word emerged that Washington was discussing possible peace conditions with Russia.
A senior Ukrainian official told Reuters that Kyiv had received “signals” about a set of US proposals to end the war that Washington has discussed with Russia.
Ukraine has had no role in preparing the proposals, the source said.
Efforts to revive peace negotiations appear to be gaining momentum although Moscow has shown no sign of changing its terms for ending the war.
Mr Zelenskiy has remained focused on the war effort and said on Tuesday he was preparing to “reinvigorate negotiations” and discuss with Mr Erdogan how to bring a “just peace” to Ukraine.
“Doing everything possible to bring the end of the war closer is Ukraine’s top priority,” he said on Tuesday.
Russian forces control about 19 per cent of Ukrainian territory and are grinding forwards, while carrying out frequent attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure as winter approaches.
Turkey, a Nato member that has remained close to both sides, hosted an initial round of peace talks in the early weeks of the war in 2022, the only such talks until this year when US president Donald Trump launched a new bid to end the fighting.
The Kremlin said Russian representatives would not be involved in the talks but that president Vladimir Putin was open to conversations with the United States and Turkey about the results of the discussions.– Reuters
