Russia launched its deadliest attack since the beginning of the year on Ukraine’s capital Kiev and other cities overnight, killing 16 people, including a 12-year-old child, and wounding dozens in drone and missile strikes, officials said today.

Fires broke out in parts of the capital, sending black smoke billowing into the sky as firefighters tried to bring the flames under control. Residents and rescue crews were trying to clear debris from badly damaged buildings in the city this morning.

The Russian Defense Ministry said today that a massive night attack it carried out in Ukraine hit cruise missile and drone production facilities, as well as energy targets that it said supplied Kiev’s armed forces. Moscow said the attack was in response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets in Russia.

In Kiev, “four people were killed (…) including a 12-year-old boy,” the mayor of the Ukrainian capital Vitaly Klitschko said. Nine people were killed in Odessa and three in Dnipropetrovsk province in the southeast of the country, where Russian attacks caused fires in apartment buildings, according to regional officials.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the night proved that Russia deserved no easing of international policy or lifting of sanctions, as some 100 people were wounded in addition to those who died. “The pressure on Russia has to work. And it is important that any promises of aid to Ukraine are fulfilled in time,” he said in a post on X.

European Council President Antonio Costa today denounced the latest bloody Russian strikes in Ukraine, calling on Moscow to stop deliberately spreading terror among civilians. “Last night Russia launched a new heinous attack on civilians in Ukraine,” he told X. “Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has failed, which is why it chooses to deliberately terrorize civilians,” he added.

For its part, the Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down or neutralized 31 Russian missiles and 636 drones, but recorded strikes by 12 missiles and 20 drones in the 24 hours to 7 a.m.p.m. (local and Greek time).

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said rescue operations were continuing and the number of casualties could rise, while Foreign Minister Andriy Shibiha called on the international community to act. “All decisions needed to increase pressure on the attacker must be unblocked now,” he said in a post on X. “It is immoral, counterproductive and dangerous to delay sanctions against Russia or support packages for Ukraine.”

Klitschko said Kiev was hit by another attack early today, adding that a drone, flying very low, crashed into an 18-storey building. He said first aid teams rescued a mother and a child from a building in a central district where the ground floor was badly damaged. He also said rocket fragments hit the sixth floor of an apartment building in the central Podil district.

A major fire broke out in a building in a district in the northern part of the capital and four rescuers were injured and shrapnel had fallen in several areas, Klitschko said.

Nine people have been killed and 23 wounded in an attack on a high-rise building in the city of Odessa in southern Ukraine, officials say.

“Last night, the city was targeted by several waves of drone and missile attacks,” said local military chief Sherhi Lisak, via a Telegram post, citing damage to infrastructure and a residential building.

In Dnipropetrovsk province, the head of the local military command, Oleksandr Ganja, said two people were killed and 30 wounded in an attack in the town of Dnipro late yesterday and overnight. Another man was killed and four people were wounded in the surrounding area, Ganja said.

In Kharkiv, officials said two people were wounded in drone attacks.