Russian attack kills 19, injures 66 in Ukraine

19 people have been killed in a heavy Russian missile and drone attack on Ternopil in Ukraine.

The overnight attack struck a residential tower block in the western Ukrainian city of Ternopil.

66 people were also wounded in the strikes on Ukraine that targeted energy and transport infrastructure, forcing emergency power cuts in a number of regions in frigid temperatures.

The upper floors of the residential building in Ternopil were torn away in the attack.

Black smoke poured upwards, while an orange glow burned though the haze from a fire in the tower block.

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Officials told Reuters that Russia launched more than 470 drones and 48 missiles in the overnight attack.

Poland, a NATO member state bordering western Ukraine, temporarily closed Rzeszow and Lublin airports in the southeast of the country and scrambled Polish and allied aircraft as a precaution to safeguard its airspace.

President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed multi-storey residential buildings had been hit in Ternopil, and said others may be trapped under the rubble.

Zelensky urged allies to increase pressure on Russia to end its nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine, including by providing Kyiv with more air-defence missiles.

“Every brazen attack against ordinary life shows that the pressure on Russia is insufficient. Effective sanctions and assistance to Ukraine can change this,” he said on X.

The Star