Russia pounds Ukraine with 'massive' attack in 'hellish' night

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia on Sunday pummelled Ukraine with a "massive" aerial barrage of missiles and drones in the largest attack in months that Kyiv branded "hellish". 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow launched 120 missiles and almost 100 drones, targeting the capital as well as southern, central and far-western corners of the country. 

Civilians were killed in the Mykolaiv, Lviv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions in what officials in Kyiv called it one of the biggest barrages of the almost three-year long Russian invasion. 

The attack comes at a time when Moscow has been steadily advancing in Ukraine's east and with the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House raising fears over the future of US support for Kyiv.

"A hellish night," the spokesman for Ukraine's airforce Yuriy Ignat said on social media, adding that Kyiv downed "144 targets". 

The giant attack followed two days after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time in almost two years, calling on the Kremlin chief to end Moscow's devastating offensive. 

Kyiv had slammed Scholz for reaching out to Putin and Sunday said the attack was the Kremlin's real answer.

"This is war criminal Putin's true response to all those who called and visited him recently," Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said after the attack. 

"We need peace through strength, not appeasement." 

Scholz on Sunday defended the call and insisted that Berlin's backing for Kyiv was unwavering.

"Ukraine can count on us," the German leader said ahead of flying to a G20 meeting in Brazil, promising that "no decision will be taken behind Ukraine's back" on ending the conflict. 

But Poland's prime minister joined the backlash on Sunday.

"No-one will stop Putin with phone calls. The attack last night, one of the biggest in this war, has proved that telephone diplomacy cannot replace real support from the whole West for Ukraine," Donald Tusk wrote on X.

Civilian deaths across Ukraine 

The strikes caused massive power cuts across the country, with fears of a precarious winter to come. 

"A massive attack on our country," Zelensky said. 

"Over the past week, the aggressor used nearly 140 missiles of various types, more than 900 guided aerial bombs, and over 600 strike drones," he said, accusing Moscow of trying to "intimidate us with cold and blackouts". 

AFP journalists heard explosions in the early morning in Kyiv and close to Sloviansk in the Donetsk region. 

Moscow, meanwhile, said it had hit all its targets, claiming it had targeted an "essential energy infrastructure supporting the Ukrainian military-industrial complex".

But civilian deaths were reported across the country. 

Officials in Kherson said a 51-year-old woman was killed by a drone. 

In the southern Mykolaiv region, local leader Vitaliy Kim said two women were killed in a night attack and that seven people -- including two children -- were wounded. 

The death toll included two employees of the state railway company Ukrzaliznytsia in the city of Nikopol, who were killed when a depot was hit, the Dnipropetrovsk region's governor Sergiy Lysak and the operator said. Three more people were wounded in the bombing.

Two people were also killed in the Odesa region, where a teenager was wounded. 

Russian drones also made their way to Zakarpattia -- a mountainous region rarely hit -- with officials saying fragments fell in the village of Pavshyno, near the border with Hungary and Slovakia. 

The head of the Lviv region, Maksym Kozytsky, said a 66-year-old woman was killed in her car in the village of Sheptytsky -- some 20 kilometres from the Polish border. 

That prompted NATO-member Poland to scramble fighter jets and mobilise all available forces on Sunday in response.

Warsaw puts its armed forces on alert whenever attacks against its neighbouring country are deemed likely to create a danger for its own territory. 

Two killed in Russia 

In the border Kursk region, where Kyiv has held onto swathes of Russian land since the summer, Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone strike killed a local journalist.

Kursk leader Alexei Smirnov said Yulia Kuznetsova, the editor of the local "People's Paper" was killed in the Bolshesoldatskiy district of the Kursk region as she "took archives to her editorial office". 

The West and Ukraine says thousands of North Korea soldiers are in Russia, with some in the Kursk region, to reinforce Moscow's forces. 

Russia also said a man was killed by a Ukrainian drone in its border Belgorod region. 

Ukraine's energy operator DTEK on Sunday announced emergency power cuts in the Kyiv region and two regions in the east.

Energy grid hit 

Russia's relentless aerial bombardment has destroyed half of Ukraine's energy production capacity, President Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

With the harsh Ukrainian winter fast approaching, the country is already suffering from major energy shortfalls, while its outmanned and outgunned forces have been steadily ceding ground to the Kremlin's troops for weeks.

Kyiv has implored its Western allies for help to rebuild its energy grid -- a hugely expensive undertaking -- and to supply its outgunned forces with more aerial defence weapons.

But many in Ukraine fear that Western help will not be as freely given when Trump returns to the White House in January.