Eight killed in Russian missile strike on Ukraine apartment block

Russia launched a fresh wave of air attacks on Ukraine, killing and injuring numerous people in the eastern city of Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, authorities said on Saturday.

At least eight people were killed when a ballistic missile struck a residential building overnight, Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said in a post on Telegram. The victims included a teacher, her son, another woman and her 13-year-old daughter.

The number of casualties rose through the early morning as rescue workers gradually pulled bodies from the rubble, he added.

Photos released from the scene showed heavy damage to the five-storey residential building, with large sections of the structure apparently blown away by the impact of the missile.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said more than 10 people had been injured.

Russia had launched 29 missiles — nearly half of them ballistic — and 480 drones, most of them of the Iranian-designed Shahed type, against Ukraine, he said on social media. Once again, energy infrastructure had been among the targets of the attacks.

Zelensky said several regions were affected, including Kiev, the western regions of Khmelnytskyi and Chernivtsi, and railway infrastructure in the Zhytomyr region in the country's north-west.

Damage was also reported in the regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya, Vinnytsia, Odessa, Poltava, Sumy and Cherkasy.

Zelensky again appealed to Western allies to hold Russia accountable for what he described as "brutal attacks on life" and called for closer cooperation with the European Union to strengthen Ukraine's air defences.

Russia has been waging its full-scale war against Ukraine for more than four years. Ukraine has stepped up appeals to Western allies for additional air defence support, warning of shortages of air defence missiles.