At least 15 people have died in overnight strikes across central and eastern Ukraine, in what Volodymyr Zelensky has described as one of Russia's "most vile" attacks. Ukraine's president said a residential building in Pryluky in the Chernihiv region was destroyed as a "birthday 'gift' to Putin", who turns 74 on Wednesday. Strikes also hit Kyiv, Dnipro, Kremenchuk, Zaporizhzhia and Oleksandriya.
Zelensky said Ukraine had struck targets in attacks on Russia's Perm, Samara and Astrakhan regions in the past 24 hours, adding there was "also a response in the Black Sea", without providing further details. Moscow is yet to comment on the latest strikes. "The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively," Zelensky said, adding that 70 missiles were fired in total.
In the social media post on Wednesday morning, Zelensky said five people had been killed and 26, including five children, injured in a strike on a five-storey apartment building in Pryluky. He added that people could still be trapped in the rubble. Chernihiv Oblast police later reported that the death toll had risen to nine after the bodies of three children were recovered, with emergency workers continuing a search operation.
Two people were also killed and eight injured after Russian missile strikes damaged five apartment buildings in Dnipro and four high-rise buildings in Kremenchuk, said Zelensky. Two people were also killed in the capital, Kyiv, and two others in Oleksandriya, he added. Ukraine's national police posted pictures online showing what it says is an unexploded Russian Iskander missile in the middle of a Kyiv district.
BBC Verify has confirmed the images are genuine and the apparent missile fragments came down in an area of open land surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings. A video posted by the police shows people digging through collapsed remains of a residential building in Pryluky. Another verified video shows damage to cars and what appears to be rubble and a fallen tree in an area surrounded by apartment blocks in Kremenchuk.
Zelensky renewed a call for allies to provide air defence support packages to Ukraine, saying its military only managed to shoot down "some" of the missiles launched by Russia overnight. According to Zelensky, one of the "key targets" of the attack was the country's energy infrastructure, which Moscow earlier said it would intensify strikes on following Ukraine's strikes on Moscow's energy facilities. In a separate post on Wednesday, Zelensky said Ukraine had struck four targets in retaliatory attacks in the past 24 hours, including two oil facilities and a training ground in the Perm, Samara and Astrakhan regions.
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