Russian Strikes Wound at Least 20 in Ukraine's Capital as Child is Killed in Separate Attack

ERBIL (Kurdistan24) - A massive and coordinated Russian aerial assault rocked Ukraine in the early hours of Friday morning, wounding at least 20 people in the capital, Kyiv, where a 17-story apartment building was engulfed in flames, and killing a seven-year-old boy in a separate series of attacks in the country's southeast.

The barrage, which involved a combination of hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, caused widespread blackouts and damaged critical energy infrastructure, signaling the grim and familiar start of Russia's annual winter campaign to cripple the Ukrainian power grid and break the nation's will to resist.

The assault served as a brutal counterpoint to a week of diplomatic breakthroughs elsewhere, underscoring the relentless and devastating reality of a war that continues to rage with brutal intensity.

In the heart of the Ukrainian capital, the pre-dawn calm was shattered by the roar of incoming munitions and the rattle of air defense systems.

According to the Associated Press, rescue crews were dispatched to a high-rise apartment building where a fire, reportedly started by a drone or falling debris, had broken out on the sixth and seventh floors and was rapidly spreading upwards. Emergency services worked frantically to pull more than 20 people from the burning structure.

Authorities reported that five people were hospitalized, while more than a dozen others received first aid at the scene for various injuries.

Residents of the building described a scene of terror and chaos. "Everyone was sleeping and suddenly there was such a sharp sound; it was clear that something was flying," 61-year-old Tetiana Lemishevska told the Associated Press.

"I managed to pull the blanket over my head, and then the strike hit — it blew out the windows, and the glass flew almost all the way to the door." She recounted the terrifying moments that followed as the fire took hold.

"The fire was on the sixth or seventh floor at first, and the flames went up quickly and spread to other floors. So all the people who could left the building without knowing how it would end,” she said.

The attack had an immediate and widespread impact on the city's infrastructure. Kyiv's mayor, Vitali Klitschko, confirmed that the strikes had knocked out power on both sides of the city, which is divided by the Dnipro River, according to the AP.

The New York Times reported that many of the districts on the eastern bank of the river were without electricity on Friday morning and that the city's waterworks had also been affected, with taps running dry in some neighborhoods. Ukraine's largest private electricity operator, DTEK, stated that repair work was already underway on multiple damaged thermal plants.

Ukrainian officials were unequivocal in their assessment of Russia's strategy. In a post on social media, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russian strikes had targeted both civilian and energy infrastructure in an effort to "deprive us" of the things that support normal life, The New York Times reported.

Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko described the assault as “one of the largest concentrated strikes" against the country's energy infrastructure, a sentiment echoed by Energy Minister Svitlana Hrinchuk, who called it a "massive attack."

The scale of the nationwide barrage was immense. Ukraine’s air force reported on Friday that the latest Russian assault included a staggering 465 strike and decoy drones, as well as 32 missiles of various types.

While the country's air defenses managed to intercept or jam 405 of the drones and 15 of the missiles, the sheer volume of the attack ensured that a significant number reached their targets, causing damage and casualties across the country.

Beyond Kyiv, blackouts were also reported in the northern city of Sumy and in Dnipro in central Ukraine, according to local authorities cited by The New York Times.

The human cost was most devastating in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region. Military administration officials there reported that residential areas and energy sites were pounded with a combination of attack drones, missiles, and guided bombs.

In one of these attacks, a seven-year-old boy was killed, and his parents and several others were wounded. As a precautionary measure, a major hydroelectric plant in the area was also taken offline.

This assault marks the second large volley aimed at the electrical grid in a week and signals the start of a grim, seasonal pattern that has defined the conflict since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.

As detailed by The New York Times, every fall, as temperatures begin to drop, Russia has systematically targeted Ukraine's electricity and central heating infrastructure. This strategy, aimed at plunging the country into cold and darkness, is widely seen as an effort to erode public morale and break the will of the Ukrainian people to continue their fight.

This "energy war" has evolved into a strategic and technological cat-and-mouse game. Over the past years, Ukraine has responded to this threat by significantly beefing up its air defenses, fortifying critical infrastructure like transformer stations with concrete barriers, diversifying its energy sources with new wind and solar fields, and adding resilience to the grid with large backup batteries.

In response, Russia has adapted its tactics, honing its strategies to evade these strengthened defenses by launching complex, hours-long attacks that involve waves of both drones and missiles in various combinations.

This fall, Russia has also expanded its target list. As reported by The New York Times, Russian forces have begun to concentrate their fire on Ukraine's natural gas infrastructure, including gas fields, pipelines, and pumping stations. This represents a significant strategic shift.

Until January of this year, Ukraine had continued to transport Russian natural gas through its pipelines to customers in Europe, a legacy arrangement that persisted despite the war. While this agreement was in effect, Russia had largely refrained from striking this infrastructure.

With that commercial interest no longer a factor, Ukraine's state gas company reported last week that it had suffered the largest strike of the war on its natural gas infrastructure.

The brutal reality of Friday's attacks stands in stark contrast to a week of diplomatic optimism in Washington. President Trump, fresh off celebrating a breakthrough ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, has publicly stated that he now expects his administration to resolve the war in Ukraine.

During a meeting on Thursday with Finnish President Alexander Stubb, who described a settlement in Ukraine as "the next big one," President Trump responded with characteristic confidence: "We’re going to work it out." This optimism, however, appears disconnected from the positions of the primary belligerents.

As The New York Times noted, Russian officials have recently declared that U.S.-initiated peace talks have hit a "dead end," while Ukrainian officials have maintained that no negotiations can succeed without additional pressure on Russia. The massive aerial assault on Friday morning serves as a powerful and deadly statement from Moscow, signaling its clear intent to continue waging its war with unrelenting force as another bitter winter approaches.