Russia strikes Ukraine with deadly drone and missile barrage, killing 16

Russia carried out a large-scale wave of drone and missile strikes across Ukraine on Wednesday night, leaving at least 16 people dead and around 100 others injured, according to Ukrainian officials.

In the southern port city of Odesa, eight people were killed, with local authorities reporting that attacks continued into Thursday morning.

Meanwhile, in Russia’s Krasnodar Krai region, a Ukrainian drone strike reportedly killed two children, aged five and 14, according to regional officials.

The renewed violence follows a brief ceasefire observed over the Orthodox Easter weekend, during which both sides accused each other of numerous violations.

In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said casualties were recorded in the capital, where rescuers pulled a woman and her child from the rubble of a collapsed 16-storey residential building in the Podilsky district. Several others, including four emergency medical workers, were injured in the northern part of the city.

Elsewhere, three people were killed and dozens injured in the central city of Dnipro, with images showing buildings engulfed in flames. A 12-year-old boy was among those killed in Kyiv, while a drone strike in Kharkiv left two elderly residents wounded.

Power outages were also reported in the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson following the attacks.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian air defences intercepted 636 Russian drones within a day, noting that nearly 700 drones, along with 19 ballistic and cruise missiles, had been launched overnight. He argued that the continued attacks demonstrate Russia’s unwillingness to ease hostilities and called for sustained international pressure.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the strikes as war crimes and urged the international community to impose stronger sanctions and provide additional support.

The conflict, now in its fifth year, has seen multiple rounds of peace talks mediated by the United States, but progress has stalled. Ukraine continues to push for a comprehensive ceasefire as a first step toward ending the war, while Russia insists on negotiating a broader peace agreement first, raising doubts in Kyiv about Moscow’s commitment to ending the fighting.