- By Hugo Bachega in Kiev & Antoinette Radford in London
- BBC news
image source, State Emergency Service of Ukraine
Rescuers in Uman pulled the victim out of the rubble on Friday morning
Russia has launched a wave of air strikes against cities across Ukraine, including Kiev, killing at least 13 people.
Officials said 11 people, including a child, were killed in an attack on a block of apartments in downtown Uman.
And a woman and her three-year-old daughter were killed in the city of Dnipro, according to the local mayor.
Explosions were also recorded in the city of Kremenchuk in central Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the apartment complex was among 10 damaged residential buildings in Uman. The state rescue service said the child who died in the city was born in 2013, and 11 others needed hospital treatment.
Zelensky said the attacks showed the need for more international action against Russia.
“Evil can be stopped with weapons – our defenders are doing it. And it can be stopped with sanctions – global sanctions must be strengthened.” he said in a tweet.
The head of the Kiev military government said this was Russia’s first missile attack on the capital in 51 days.
There were no immediate reports of civilian casualties in the capital.
21 of the 23 missiles and 2 attack drones were shot down by Ukraine’s air defenses, officials said in a post on the Telegram messaging service.
image source, Social media
The video shows the immediate damage of the strike
A video posted on Telegram by the State Border Service of Ukraine on Telegram shows an apartment building in Uman badly damaged after the strikes.
Olga, a resident of a damaged apartment complex, told Reuters news agency her apartment’s window was blown out “followed by an explosion”.
A man cried as he watched emergency services carry a body on a stretcher.
Another local resident said he heard an explosion at 04:30 local time (02:30 GMT) and “there were two very loud bangs, everything started burning, cars started burning”.
The attacks come as Ukrainian forces say they are ready to launch a military strike with new equipment, including tanks, provided by Western allies.
Russia has struggled to make headway in the winter offensive that included a 10-month battle for control of the strategically important city of Bakhmut.
It is not clear what Russia’s target in Friday’s attacks was, but it has previously attacked civilian infrastructure.
Moscow has previously said that it did not intentionally target civilians, but that thousands have been injured and killed across Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
