Russia pounds Ukraine with drones and missiles, killing eight and hitting energy sites

By Anastasiia Malenko and Olena Harmash

KYIV (Reuters) -Russia launched a heavy drone and missile attack on Ukraine early on Friday, killing six people in Kyiv and two more in the south in strikes on energy facilities, apartment buildings and infrastructure, Ukrainian officials said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russian forces used 430 drones and 18 missiles and Kyiv was responding with long-range strikes. It was one of the biggest attacks on the capital so far.

Ukrainian officials said most of the drones and missiles were shot down, but falling debris and fires damaged high-rise apartments, a school, a medical facility and administrative buildings across nine districts in the city of about 3 million.

Anastasia, 29, described the moment her apartment block was hit: "At that moment you don't know what to do first: save yourself, your child, or run to help people, because so many people were screaming and needed help," she said.

City officials said that six people were killed in Kyiv, which was the focus of the attacks. Russian drones also struck the Black Sea city of Chornomorsk, killing two people, the regional governor said.

"Only pressure – with sanctions and strength – can force Russia to end this war, a war that no one but them ever needed," Zelenskiy said, adding that the Azerbaijani Embassy was also hit, by debris from an Iskander missile.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its troops hit Ukrainian energy facilities and weapons-production complex with high-precision weapons to respond to Ukrainian attacks on Russia.

WAVES OF ATTACKS

Flames rose over various sites in Kyiv during the night as several waves of Russian drone and missile attacks hit and photographs also showed people huddled in rubble-strewn streets outside their apartment buildings.

Timur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, said that at least 34 people were injured across the city, including two children, and a pregnant woman was among nine people treated in hospital.

Partial power cuts were announced in the central Kyiv region, in the southern Odesa region, and in the Donetsk region in the east, the energy ministry said.

The governor of the Kyiv region outside the capital said drone and missile attacks injured six people, including a seven-year-old child, and triggered several fires. Ten people, including a child, were injured in Chornomorsk in the south when Russia hit the city's market, officials said.

"Ukraine is responding to these strikes with long-range strength, and the world must stop these attacks on life with sanctions," Zelenskiy said.

Kyiv has ramped up its drone attacks deep inside Russia, aiming to knock out oil refineries, depots and pipelines and cripple Moscow's biggest source of funding for its war in Ukraine.

Two industry sources told Reuters Russia's Black Sea port of Novorossiysk halted oil exports on Friday after a Ukrainian drone attack.

(Additional reporting by Yurii Kovalenko, Ronald Popeski, editing by Philippa Fletcher)