Officials say a major wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine has killed at least five people.

Following a major overnight aircraft assault that targeted multiple regions of Ukraine, at least five persons have been killed in Russian strikes around the country. Authorities confirmed that a drone struck an electric train in Kharkiv early on Tuesday, killing a 61-year-old lady. Other fatalities were reported in Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, and Poltava.

Hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had warned of an impending “massive strike” in his nighttime speech, officials said the attacks were among the bloodiest in 10 days.
President Maia Sandu warned that the situation remained “fragile” after Russian bombings targeting energy infrastructure also cut off Moldova’s vital electricity connection to Europe.

On Monday night, when Russia unleashed a torrent of missiles and drones on Ukraine, sirens sounded throughout the nation. According to a Ukrainian Air Force statement on Telegram, the attack involved the use of seven ballistic missiles, twenty-three cruise missiles, four air-launched guided missiles, and 392 drones.

It further stated that 365 drones and 25 missiles were intercepted by air defense units.In a post on X on Tuesday, Zelensky said: “These numbers clearly show that more protection is needed to save lives from Russian strikes. It is important to continue supporting Ukraine.”

Attacks of this scale have been occurring roughly once a week or every ten days in recent months, and there had been mounting fears in the past few days that another wave of strikes was imminent.

“Please pay attention to air raid sirens tonight,” Zelensky said earlier in his video address to the nation on Monday. “Intelligence says Russia may be preparing a massive strike.”

This time, cities other than Kyiv, the capital, were the target of the assault. According to Zelensky, eleven regions reported damage. The city of Zaporizhzhia in the southeast was hit by six drones and then six ballistic missiles, making it one of the most severely affected. According to local police, a residential high-rise structure was struck, resulting in one fatality and nine injuries. 

Dymtro Zaiets, a local, told that a “very loud explosion” woke his family. “We quickly gathered our things and ran downstairs, everything was on fire on our floor,” he said. “There was smoke, and we took our three-month-old child and ran quickly to the underground shelter. My car is destroyed. All our windows were blown out.”

Governor Vitaliy Dyakivnych reported on Telegram that strikes on residential buildings and a hotel in the northeastern Poltava region resulted in at least two fatalities and twelve injuries.

According to Yaroslav Shanko, the chief of Kherson’s military administration, a civilian was killed when Russian artillery struck his home. Authorities reported that a 65-year-old bus driver was hurt when his vehicle was struck by a drone in Sumy, and a 75-year-old woman was hurt and admitted to the hospital following a Russian attack on the Dnipropetrovsk region.

The strike against energy infrastructure in the Odesa area, which resulted in the disconnection of the Isaccea-Vulcanesti power line—which Moldova uses to import electricity from neighbor Romania—was denounced by the country’s authorities.

“Alternative routes are in place, but the situation remains fragile,” President Sandu wrote on X. “Russia alone bears responsibility.. In a post on Telegram, Moldova’s foreign ministry said the attacks “undermine regional energy security and endanger critical civilian infrastructure”.

The Russian advance in eastern Ukraine has slowed considerably, and Ukrainian forces have reported small counteroffensives in several places, which coincided with Moscow’s nocturnal strike. According to Russia’s defense ministry, “55 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles” were intercepted by its air defenses over different locations during the course of the night.  Russia would try to “exploit the war in the Middle East to cause even greater destruction” in Ukraine, Zelensky has previously warned. In the US-Israel conflict with Iran, air defense systems that are essential to Ukraine’s defense against Russian missile assaults are being rapidly spent.