The death toll continued on Saturday, with around thirty people killed and dozens wounded, officials said, after heavy Russian attacks on several of its cities, including the capital Kiev, the previous day.
The most violent wave of strikes since the start of the war almost two years ago has targeted buildings, a maternity ward and even a shopping centre, but also industrial and military infrastructure.
“This is a massive missile attack“, air force spokesman Yuriy Ignat told AFP, covering the first days of the battle. Officials on Friday reported 30 dead and more than 160 wounded, but bodies were pulled from the rubble in Kiev on Saturday.
Earlier in the day, a Ukrainian strike on a residential building killed one person in Belgorod and a total of 32 drones were intercepted, mostly in the Moscow region, Russian officials announced overnight from Friday to Saturday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that air defense systems destroyed 13 missiles in the region. He also announced that a total of 32 Ukrainian drones had been neutralized in Bryansk, Kursk and Orel, north of the Ukrainian border, and in Moscow.
Belgorod is about 80 km north of the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, which was hit hard by Russian forces on Friday morning, Ukrainian officials said.
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