Russia pummels Ukraine with worst air assault since start of war

Waves of Russian attacks on cities across Ukraine left at least 31 people dead and 152 injured, with the overnight onslaught described by Kiev on Friday as the worst aerial bombardment since the start of the war.

Missiles and drones hit cities nationwide, from Lviv in the west and and Kharkiv in the east, to Odessa in the south and the capital Kiev, triggering an air alert across the country. At least nine people were killed in the capital alone. Dnipro, Zaporizhzhya, and Odessa were also hit.

It was "largest air attack" on Ukraine since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion almost two years ago, Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi said.

Among the weapons used were Type S-300 Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, ballistic missiles, various cruise missile and Iranian-make long-range drones, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

"Today, Russia used nearly every type of weapon in its arsenal," he wrote on social media on Friday, adding that a maternity ward, educational institutions, a shopping mall and residential buildings were hit.

Zaluzhnyi said 122 missiles and 36 drones were fired by Russia, with air defences able to intercept over 70% of them.

Before Friday, the highest officially reported number of Russian missiles fired at Ukraine in one day was about 90.

The Russian Defence Ministry in Moscow only commented on the attack in passing, speaking of a "massive strike with high-precision weapons and drones ... All targeted objects were hit."

Later, Russia's UN Ambassador Vasily Nebenzya told an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council in New York that the real problem was that Ukraine had set up its air defence systems in residential areas.

"If the Ukrainian air defence systems hadn't operated, then there wouldn't have been any victims among civilians at all," Nebenzya said.

The Ukrainian government believes that the Russian military still has enough missiles and drones to carry out further heavy airstrikes on Ukraine.

"The Russians have been stockpiling missiles for this very purpose for many months: For strikes against residential buildings, shopping centres and hospitals," Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov wrote on Facebook on Friday.

When the Moscow military began regularly shelling Ukrainian cities and infrastructure objects last autumn and winter, Kiev repeatedly said that the Russians would soon run out of supplies.

Russia significantly increased its defence production in the second year of the war despite Western sanctions. It now produces more missiles, cruise missiles and drones than before the conflict.

In addition to the heavy bombardment from the air, Russia also attacked Ukraine with ground troops on Friday, according to the military leadership in Kiev.

However, the Ukrainian General Staff only recorded a comparatively low number of direct clashes, with 31 battles. The focus was once again on the front-line town of Avdiivka in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk.

Zelensky on Friday visited Avdiivka, which is half surrounded by Russian troops.

"Avdiivka: our positions and our boys," Zelensky said in a video message published on social networks showing him standing at the entrance to the industrial town, which was decorated with Ukrainian flags.

At the beginning of October, the Russian army launched a new offensive to capture Avdiivka. The heavily destroyed town is now only accessible via a road through a narrow corridor around 7 kilometres wide. Zelensky had already travelled to the front-line town in April.

EU chief diplomat Josep Borrell on Friday condemned Russia's recent airstrikes on Ukrainian cities, calling them "barbaric" and yet another attack on innocent civilians.

"It was yet another cowardly and indiscriminate targeting of schools, a metro station and a hospital," Borrell wrote on the X platform.

The European Union remains committed to providing additional military equipment in 2024 to help Ukraine resist the Russian invasion, Borrell said.

"The EU stands with Ukraine, as long as it takes," he wrote.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk strongly condemned the Russian airstrikes. "I am shocked by yet another full-scale set of coordinated missile and drone attacks by the Russian Federation across Ukraine during the night of December 28 to 29," Türk said in Geneva.

A Russian missile briefly violated the airspace of NATO member state Poland, the Polish army said on Friday.

"Everything points to the fact that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace. It was tracked by us on radar and also left the airspace again," Chief of the General Staff Wiesław Kukuła said in Warsaw.

The missile was in Polish airspace for around three minutes and flew over 40 kilometres, the army said.

Kukuła said that most of the Russian missiles had been tracked during the night. One of them then flew over the Ukrainian border with Poland.

"We instructed our aircraft to intercept them and shoot them down if necessary." However, this was not possible due to the short time and the way the missile flew. To be on the safe side, however, soldiers are still searching for any debris on the ground along the flight path.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk held a meeting with Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz, the army general staff and intelligence chiefs. Polish President Andrzej Duda convened a meeting of the National Security Office. He also informed NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg of the incident.

"NATO stands in solidarity with our valued ally, is monitoring the situation & we will remain in contact as the facts are established. NATO remains vigilant," Stoltenberg wrote on the platform X.

A US State Department spokesman told the PAP news agency that they are in constant contact with Poland's leadership and take the security of NATO allies very seriously.

In November 2022, a missile hit a Polish village on the border with Ukraine, killing two civilians. The West assumed that it was a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile that had been deployed in defence against Russian attacks.