RUSSIA LAUNCHES BARRAGE ON UKRAINE, KILLING DOZENS INCLUDING CHILDREN

Russia launched missiles and drones at Kyiv and a dozen other Ukrainian regions overnight into Wednesday, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky called a "massive" strike. Ukrainian officials said Russia fired 130 drones alongside 48 cruise and ballistic missiles, and that air defences intercepted 161 of the targets. Accounts of the death toll differ: one report put the number killed at 24, including four children in the northern city of Pryluky, while another said at least 21 civilians died, also including four children, with around 60 people wounded. Ukrainian officials described the barrage as one of the largest of the war.

Zelensky had warned the previous day that intelligence services believed Russia was preparing a large-scale strike, and the attack coincided with President Vladimir Putin's birthday. Ukrainian officials said the country lacks sufficient ammunition for its US-made Patriot air defence systems, leaving it unable to intercept Russian ballistic missiles. Kyiv is working to develop a new generation of interceptors capable of catching Moscow's jet-propelled drones. The strike formed part of an escalating campaign in recent weeks that has targeted Ukraine's energy infrastructure and its rail and road transport networks.

The attack came more than four and a half years after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with the two countries' armies largely deadlocked on the battlefield while the aerial war continues. Western analysts said Putin is continuing the invasion in the belief that Ukraine will come under increasing pressure and that its Western supporters will not maintain their support indefinitely. US-led efforts to broker peace appear unlikely to deliver short-term relief, though the possibility of low-level technical talks remains under discussion. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on the social media platform X that "Russia is pursuing a deliberate strategy of terror."