Kyiv, 5 Oct

At least five people were killed as Russia launched a large-scale overnight assault on Ukraine with drones, missiles, and guided aerial bombs, targeting civilian infrastructure, officials said Sunday.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow fired over 50 ballistic missiles and around 500 drones across nine regions. In Lviv, four people, including a 15-year-old, were killed and at least six injured in combined drone and missile strikes, according to regional authorities. 

Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said two districts lost power and public transport was halted temporarily. A fire broke out at a business complex on the city’s outskirts, which he described as a civilian site unrelated to the war.

In the Ivano-Frankivsk region, one person was injured, Governor Svitlana Onyshchuk said. A woman was killed and nine others, including a 16-year-old girl, were wounded in Zaporizhzhia, where Governor Ivan Fedorov reported residential damage and power outages affecting about 73,000 households.

Six people, including a child, were injured in Sloviansk after a Russian bomb hit an apartment block, regional prosecutors said. Over two dozen residential buildings, cars, shops, and a café were damaged.

Zelenskyy again urged Western allies to expedite air defense support. “Russia targeted our infrastructure, everything that ensures normal life,” he said. “We need stronger protection to make this aerial terror pointless.”

The Kremlin has intensified strikes on Ukraine’s power grid and railways ahead of winter, as part of what Kyiv calls an effort to ‘weaponize the cold.’