By Olena Harmash and Vladyslav Smilianets
KYIV, Oct 7 (Reuters) – Russia pounded Ukraine with waves of missiles and drones on Wednesday, killing at least 15 people and hitting residential buildings, industrial facilities and infrastructure, Ukrainian officials said.
One Russian missile slammed into an apartment block in the northern city of Pryluky, killing at least nine people including three children, regional governor Vyacheslav Chaus said.
Dozens of rescuers picked through the rubble at the site where several sections of the five-story building collapsed, Reuters video showed.
Emergency workers used ladders to get to the upper floors of what remained of the building. Around 40 people were wounded, the governor said.
BIG JUMP IN REPORTED DRONE INTERCEPTIONS
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said six other people were killed in Kyiv, Oleksandria and Kremenchuk during the heavy overnight attack.
“This was one of the most vile strikes: 70 missiles in total, many of them ballistic,” Zelenskiy said on the Telegram app. “One of the key targets was our energy infrastructure. The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively.”
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had 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.
Ukraine’s air force said it had downed just over 80% of the 46 jet-powered drones launched by Russia — a sharp increase from recent weeks when, on average, air defences took down 50% to 60%.
Since the summer, Russia has used increasing numbers of the new high-velocity drones in round-the-clock attacks on Kyiv and other cities, stretching Ukraine’s air defences which have struggled to cope with their speed.
The air force did not explain the jump in the interception rate and did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Zelenskiy said that the Russian ballistic missiles remained the major challenge for Ukraine, adding that he and his team were “every day looking for Patriot (missile interception) systems that can and must protect people’s lives”.
The US-made Patriot system is the only weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal capable of stopping high-velocity ballistic missiles but tight global supplies have been drained by the Iran war this year as well as the Ukraine conflict.
Ukraine’s energy ministry said that it had started to roll out partial emergency power cuts in five Ukrainian regions due to the attacks.
Russia’s defence ministry said its targets included sites where Ukrainian defence company Fire Point manufactures and stores its Flamingo cruise missiles and medium- and long-range drones in Kyiv as well as regions of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Kharkiv.
Last week, Zelenskiy said Ukraine had fired its first domestically made ballistic missile in combat, produced by Fire Point.
In an interview with Reuters last week, Zelenskiy said he expected the company to have a longer-range FP-9 missile ready by the autumn. The company has said that weapon will be able to reach Moscow.
PEOPLE SHELTER OVERNIGHT IN KYIV METRO
Zelenskiy said Ukrainian troops hit four targets in Russia over the past 24 hours, including two Russian oil facilities and a training ground in the Perm, Samara, and Astrakhan regions.
In the Reuters interview, Zelenskiy said Ukraine would hit Russia’s energy assets in response to Moscow’s escalating strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Many Kyiv residents took shelter in the city’s deep underground metro stations as warnings of the upcoming attacks were shared by Ukrainian officials and military intelligence.
Several loud explosions reverberated through the capital during the night, Reuters witnesses said.
“The metro is better, because we live on the 9th floor of a high-rise, and it’s really scary when you’re on the 9th floor and missiles are flying at you,” Lesia, a 49-year-old Kyiv resident, told Reuters.
Ukrainian officials said Russian ballistic missiles targeted Kyiv in addition to the drones.
Overnight air strikes on the southeastern city of Dnipro damaged an industrial facility, transport infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia and apartment buildings in Kremenchuk, regional officials said on the Telegram messaging app.
(Reporting by Olena Harmash, additional reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo; Editing by Daniel Flynn and Andrew Heavens)
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