Russian missile and drone barrage kills at least 11 in Ukraine as energy sites hit

Russia launched a large overnight missile and drone attack across Ukraine, hitting energy infrastructure and other sites and killing at least 11 people, according to Ukrainian officials. The strike wave affected several regions, including the capital Kyiv, the northern city of Pryluki and the central Poltava region. Ukrainian authorities said the assault was among the biggest of its kind in recent months.

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President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia fired around 70 missiles and also used drones in the attack. He said one of the main targets was Ukraine's energy infrastructure and described the assault as intended to cause maximum damage. The Ukrainian air force said its air defence units downed 161 targets, while the country's parliamentary commissioner for human rights said people had once again been hit by Russian missiles throughout the night.

Officials said two people were killed in Kyiv, four in Pryluki and two in the Poltava region. In Pryluki, a missile struck a five-storey residential building, leaving at least four people dead and 20 wounded, with local authorities warning that more residents could still be trapped under rubble. Video images showed rescuers pulling people from the wreckage, underlining the scale of the destruction in the town.

The attack matters because energy infrastructure has remained a central target in Russia's war against Ukraine, with repeated strikes aimed at weakening power supplies, industry and civilian resilience. Zelensky said ballistic missiles remain the greatest challenge for Ukraine's defences and called air defence packages a vital necessity. The latest barrage also comes as Kyiv continues to seek stronger protection for critical infrastructure and urban areas under sustained attack.

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Russia's defence ministry said its forces carried out a massive strike on military-industrial facilities in Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions using high-precision land-, sea- and air-launched weapons, as well as drones. It said the targets included sites where the Ukrainian defence company Fire Point manufactures and stores its Flamingo cruise missiles and medium- and long-range drones. The ministry named Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kharkiv among the regions it said were targeted.

What remains unclear is the full scale of the damage, the final casualty count and how many people may still be trapped in Pryluki. It is also not yet clear how much of the reported military-industrial damage can be independently verified. Further updates are likely as rescue work continues and Ukrainian officials assess the impact on energy and defence-related sites.

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