'Massive' Russian air attack kills four in Ukraine

KYIV (Reuters) - Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles in overnight attacks on Ukraine, killing at least three people and damaging large energy infrastructure facilities in three regions, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 450 drones and 45 missiles. Two people were killed and 12 were wounded in the city of Dnipro when a drone hit an apartment building. One person was killed in the Kharkiv region, regional officials said.

Energy facilities in the Kyiv, Poltava and Kharkiv regions were damaged, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said, adding the government and energy companies were working to restore damaged electricity, water and heating provision.

In response, Zelensky said sanctions pressure on Moscow should be intensified.

“…for every Moscow strike on energy infrastructure aimed at harming ordinary people before winter there must be a sanctions response targeting all Russian energy, with no exceptions,” he said on the Telegram app.

Moscow’s Defence Ministry said it had launched “a massive strike with high-precision long-range air, ground and sea-based weapons” on weapon production and energy facilities in response to Kyiv’s strikes on Russia. The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 406 Russian drones and nine missiles. It said 26 Russian missiles and 52 drones had hit 25 sites.

Russia captures tiny village

Meanwhile, Russia also said its forces continued to advance in grinding battles around the towns of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk, and had captured a tiny village in eastern Ukraine.

The Defence Ministry said on Telegram that its forces had taken Vovche, in the southeast corner of the Dnipropetrovsk region.

In the Donetsk region, Russia said it continued to gain ground in house-by-house fighting in the strategic town of Pokrovsk, as well as nearby Myrnohrad. Russia, which refers to the towns by their Soviet-era names of Krasnoarmeisk and Dmitrov, has said they are both encircled.

The ministry also said its forces are making progress in Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region, where it says Ukrainian units are also surrounded.