More than half of Ukraine's regions targeted in Russian drone and missile attack

The whole of Ukraine is on high alert after Russia launched its largest bombardment since its invasion of the country in 2022, ITV News' Martha Fairlie reports

Russia has unleashed a massive missile and drone barrage throughout Ukraine, targeting energy infrastructure in 15 regions.

At least seven people were killed, according to authorities, while power and water supplies were disrupted across the country in what appeared to be Russia's biggest attack against since the war began in 2022.

The bombardment followed missile attacks over the weekend that killed a security adviser working for the Reuters news agency and injured two others in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Russian forces fired drones, cruise missiles and hypersonic ballistic Kinzhal missiles at 15 Ukrainian regions — more than half the country.

“The energy infrastructure has once again become the target of Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there is damage in a number of regions," Shmyhal said, adding that Ukraine’s state-owned power grid operator, Ukrenergo, has been forced to implement emergency power cuts to stabilise the system.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that more than 100 missiles and about 100 attack drones were launched by Russia overnight.

“Like most previous Russian strikes, this one was just as vile, targeting critical civilian infrastructure," he said.

Shmyhal called on Ukraine's allies to provide Kyiv with long-range weapons and permission to use them on targets inside Russia.

“In order to stop the barbaric shelling of Ukrainian cities, it is necessary to destroy the place from which the Russian missiles are launched," Shmyhal said. "We count on the support of our allies and will definitely make Russia pay.”

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Explosions were heard in the capital, Kyiv, and power and water supplies were disrupted.

One person was killed in the western city of Lutsk, one in the central Dnipropetrovsk region and one in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in the southeast, according to local officials, who said 13 others were wounded.

Blackouts and damage to civilian infrastructure and residential buildings were reported across the country, from the region of Sumy in the east, to the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions in the south, to the region of Rivne in the west.

In Sumy, a province in the east that borders Russia, local administration said that 194 settlements were in a full power blackout, while 19 others had a partial blackout.

Ukraine's private energy company, DTEK, introduced emergency blackouts, saying in an online statement that “energy workers throughout the country work 24/7 to restore light in the homes of Ukrainians.”

Shelter type places, called "points of invincibility", are being opened so that people can charge their devices and get refreshments during energy blackouts, Prime Minister Shmyhal said.

In neighboring Poland, the military said Polish and NATO air defenses were activated in the eastern part of the country as a result of the attack.

In Russia, in the meantime, officials reported a Ukrainian drone attack overnight and on Monday morning.

Four people were injured in Russia’s central region of Saratov, where drones hit residential buildings in two cities.

One drone crashed into a residential high-rise in the city of Saratov, and another hit a residential building in the city of Engels, home to a military airfield that had been attacked before, local officials said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said that a total of 22 Ukrainian drones were intercepted overnight and in the morning over eight Russian regions, including the Saratov and Yaroslavl regions in central Russia.

Russia and Ukraine exchanged more than 100 prisoners of war each on Saturday, as Kyiv marked the country's third Independence Day since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion.

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