The Russian forces on Friday (local time) carried out strikes on multiple Ukrainian military facilities and gas infrastructure, Russia Today reported, citing the country's Ministry of Defence.
According to Russia Today, the Russian defence ministry said that missiles and long-range drones were launched from various platforms overnight which hit all the designated targets.
Ukraine's state-owned energy company, Naftogaz, described the attack as the largest on gas extraction sites in the country to date. The company said that the damage due to Russian strikes was "critical", noting that sites in the Kharkiv and Poltava regions were hit by about 35 missiles, as per Russia Today.
On September 7, Russia launched its largest aerial assault of the Ukraine war overnight into Sunday, deploying more than 800 drones and striking a Kyiv government building for the first time, CNN reported.
An infant was among at least two people killed during drone strikes on several residential buildings in the Ukraine capital, which was under an air-raid siren for 11 hours.
Russia launched a total of 810 drones, four ballistic missiles and nine cruise missiles, the Ukrainian Air Force said. While most were shot down by air defences, 54 drones and nine missiles hit targets across Ukraine, it said.
The latest assault surpasses the size of a July attack that was previously the largest of the war, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022. It also comes after recent attempts by Kyiv's Western allies to broker a peace deal, as per CNN.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as "vile," saying that "such killings now, when real diplomacy could have started a long time ago, are a deliberate crime and a prolongation of the war."
"The world can make the Kremlin's criminals stop killing, all we need is political will," Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko called it a "massive attack," saying the cities of Kryvyi Rih, Dnipro, Kremenchuk, and Odesa all came under fire, as well as Kyiv.
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