Russian attacks on Ukraine kill 16 people, including a child | Russia-Ukraine war News

Deadly attacks have hit Kiev, Odessa and Dnipro, while Russia says two children have been killed in Ukrainian attacks.

Russian strikes have killed at least 16 people in Ukraine, according to local authorities, after Moscow launched a wave of attacks on its neighbors overnight.

Moscow has fired missiles as well as hundreds of drones at its neighbor every night since the start of the four-year war, with Kiev regularly carrying out strikes inside Russia in response to its attacks.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia had launched 659 drones in the attack and 44 missiles over the past 24 hours, adding that its air defense units had downed 636 drones and 31 missiles.

The latest attacks come after the end of a 32-hour Orthodox Easter shutdown marred by accusations of mass violations, according to both countries.

Missile and drone attacks on the southern port city of Odessa killed nine people, the head of the city’s military administration, Serhiy Lysak, wrote on Telegram on Thursday. The strikes on the Ukrainian Black Sea port city also wounded 23 people.

Strikes on the capital Kiev have killed at least four people, including a 12-year-old child, Ukraine’s state emergency service said. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said at least 48 people were injured in the strikes.

Three people were killed and 34 were wounded in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the regional administration, said on Telegram.

Russia’s defense ministry said on Thursday that its overnight strikes on Ukraine hit production facilities for cruise missiles and drones, as well as energy targets, which it said were supplied to Kiev’s armed forces.

Moscow said the attack was a response to Ukrainian attacks on civilian targets inside Russia.

A major Ukrainian drone strike overnight on Russia’s Black Sea port of Tuapse killed two children and caused a major fire, Russian officials and media reported.

“A terrorist drone attack on residential buildings in Tuapse claimed the lives of two minors aged five and 14,” its governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram.

Widespread damage

The head of the EU Council, Antonio Costa, accused Russia of choosing to “deliberately terrorize” civilians in Ukraine, calling the overnight strikes a “heinous attack against civilian targets.”

The Russian airstrikes on Kiev caused widespread damage across the Podilskyi, Obolonskyi and Desnyanskyi districts, according to the city’s largest.

Across the Ukrainian capital, explosions set buildings and cars on fire, broke windows and damaged the facades of hotels, Ukraine’s state emergency service said in an assessment of the damage posted on Telegram.

Debris from the attacks caused fires in a residential building in Podilskyi, damaged a hotel and collapsed a house. “A child and her mother were rescued from the rubble,” Klitschko wrote on Telegram.

In the Obolonskyi district, the strikes damaged an office building and set cars on fire. At least four medics were injured as a result of repeated bombings, Klitschko said. Falling debris also started a fire at a two-story residential building in Desnyanskyi district, he added.

Photos posted online showed fires burning out of control and smoke billowing skyward.

Al Jazeera’s Audrey Macalpine, reporting from Kiev, said the overnight spikes in the latest attacks show the need for more interceptors in Ukraine. “It reflects a bigger problem for Ukraine, which is a lack of interceptors,” she said, adding that the president of Ukraine is working to get more from Europe.

Failed diplomacy

In recent months, several rounds of negotiations have been conducted by the United States fail to bring the warring parties closer to an agreement to stop the fighting, which was triggered by Russia’s February 2022 invasion.

The process has further stalled since the outbreak of war in the Middle East, with Washington’s attention shifting to Iran.

But even before the US-Israel war against Iran, progress toward a peace deal in Ukraine was slow, due to differences over the issue of territory.

Ukraine has proposed freezing the conflict along the current front lines.

But Russia has rejected that, saying it wants the entire Donetsk region, despite it being partially controlled by Ukraine – a demand Kyiv says is unacceptable.