A large Russian drone and missile barrage has killed 25 people, including three children, and injured dozens more in Ukraine overnight, officials said.
The attack came as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy arrived in Turkey for talks on finding a settlement that might end Russia’s invasion of his country.
The night-time attack hit two nine-storey apartment blocks in Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine, according to interior minister Ihor Klymenko.
Emergency crews were sifting through the rubble in daylight to find any survivors, he said.
RM Block
At least 73 people were reported injured, including 15 children.
At least 19 among those killed were burned alive, including three children aged five, seven and 16, Mr Klymenko said.
Two dozen people were still unaccounted for, he said on national television, and rescuers expected to work for at least two more days to complete the search of rubble.
Russia fired 476 strike and decoy drones, as well as 48 missiles of various types, at Ukrainian targets overnight, Ukraine’s air force said.
The bombardment included 47 cruise missiles, with air defences intercepting all but six of them, the air force said. Western-supplied F-16 and Mirage-2000 jets intercepted at least 10 cruise missiles, it said.
“Every brazen attack against ordinary life indicates that the pressure on Russia [to stop the war] is insufficient,” Mr Zelenskiy wrote on the messaging app Telegram.
Mr Zelenskiy met with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara later on Wednesday as part of his efforts to diplomatically isolate Russian president Vladimir Putin and bring more international pressure to bear on him. Mr Putin has so far resisted making compromises, despite US pressure.
In brief statements to the press, Mr Zelensky and Mr Erdogan expressed their commitment to finding a peaceful settlement. Turkey is a key broker in the Black Sea region, preserving relations with both Ukraine and Russia.
“We count on the strength of Turkish diplomacy, on [how] it’s understood in Moscow,” Mr Zelenskiy said.
Mr Zelenskiy said before the talks that he had seen “see some positions and signals from the United States” about the war.
He did not elaborate but tough new American sanctions on Russia’s oil industry, devised to push Mr Putin to the negotiating table, are due to take effect on Friday.
A senior Turkish official initially said that US special envoy Steve Witkoff would join Mr Zelenskiy in Turkey, but backtracked later in the day and said Mr Witkoff would not be coming.
An army official confirmed on Wednesday that US army secretary Dan Driscoll was in Ukraine for negotiations.
The official said that Mr Driscoll was accompanied by army chief of staff general Randy George and general Chris Donahue, commander of US army Europe and Africa.
The Ukrainian city of Ternopil, located around 193km/h from the Polish border, sits in a part of relatively peaceful western Ukraine where many people from the east and south moved to as they fled danger along the front line.
Almost 50 people were injured in Russian strikes on three other Ukrainian regions.
Russia’s defence ministry said it attacked Ukrainian energy facilities and military-industrial targets, including long-range drone depots, in retaliation against strikes by Kyiv on Russian territory.
Two Eurofighter Typhoon jets and two F-16s were scrambled in Romania when a drone entered the Nato member’s airspace during the Russian attacks, Romania’s ministry of national defence said.
The Polish military said that Polish and allied aircraft were deployed in the middle of the night as a preventive measure.
Poland’s Rzeszow and Lublin airports were closed temporarily to prioritise military aviation, the Polish air navigation services agency said.
In northeastern Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Russian drones injured 46 people, including two girls, the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov, wrote on Telegram.
Drones hit several city districts, at least 16 residential buildings, an ambulance station, school and other civilian infrastructure, he said.
Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said on Wednesday that Ukraine fired four US-supplied ATACMS missiles at the Russian city of Voronezh on Tuesday.
All four were intercepted, the ministry said, adding there were no casualties.
Ukraine’s general staff on Tuesday reported firing ATACMS missiles at Russia without offering details. – AP
