Zelensky condemns overnight Russian strikes that killed dozens across Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday denounced what he called one of Russia's 'most vile' overnight assault waves, after large-scale missile and drone strikes killed more than twenty people across central and eastern Ukraine. The death toll stood at least 24, with heavy losses in the Chernihiv-region city of Pryluky.

Deadliest blow in Pryluky

Zelensky said a five-storey residential building in Pryluky was destroyed in an attack he framed as a 'birthday 'gift'' timed around Russian President Vladimir Putin's 74th birthday. In a social media update, he reported that 18 people - including four children - were killed in that single strike. Ukraine's State Emergency Service said about 50 people were injured there, including seven children, while rescue crews continued searching rubble on Wednesday morning.

Strikes from Kyiv to Dnipro

Beyond Pryluky, Zelensky said strikes also hit Kyiv, Dnipro, Kremenchuk, Zaporizhzhia and Oleksandriya. Two people were killed and eight injured after missiles damaged apartment buildings in Dnipro and high-rises in Kremenchuk, according to the same account. Two people were also reported killed in Kyiv and two more in Oleksandriya.

Ukraine's national police posted images of what they described as an unexploded Russian Iskander missile in a Kyiv district. Independent verification later confirmed the images as genuine and that apparent missile fragments came down on open land surrounded by apartment blocks.

Air defenses stretched thin

Zelensky said roughly 70 missiles were fired in total and that Ukrainian forces managed to shoot down only 'some' of them. He renewed an appeal for allies to accelerate air-defense packages, arguing that energy infrastructure was among the 'key targets' of the overnight wave - consistent with Moscow's stated intent to intensify strikes on Ukraine's power system after Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy facilities.

Ukrainian retaliation and Black Sea flashpoints

In parallel posts, Zelensky said Ukraine had struck four targets in the previous 24 hours, including oil facilities and a training ground in Russia's Perm, Samara and Astrakhan regions, plus an unspecified 'response in the Black Sea.' Footage had earlier shown a large plume of smoke near an oil tanker off Sochi; Russia's transport ministry said unmanned boats attacked the Liberian-flagged Aframax Rio and that the crew was rescued.

Separately, Bulgaria halted a search for missing crew from a ship that sank after a drone hit in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone, and a second grain-carrying vessel was also struck there. Zelensky blamed Russia for the Black Sea attacks; Moscow had not commented on the latest incidents at the time of writing.

Why it matters

The overnight toll underscores how civilian apartment blocks remain exposed when air defenses cannot intercept massed salvos. For Kyiv's partners, the story is less about a single night's casualty count than about the recurring shortfall in interceptors and the widening geography of the war - from Ukrainian cities to energy nodes deep inside Russia and shipping lanes across the Black Sea.