At least two people have been killed and five injured after multiple cities and regions across Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, were attacked in a series of night-time air raids.
In Dnipro, the city’s mayor Borys Filatov said a woman and a three-year-old child were killed in the attacks in the early hours of Friday morning, but gave no further details.
“No more words,” he wrote.
Videos shared on social media showed an apartment block in Uman, a city of 80,000 people in central Ukraine’s Cherkasy oblast, billowing flames and smoke. The footage showed a corner of the building had collapsed with piles of rubble on the ground beneath.
Cherkasy Governor Ihor Taburets said emergency services were at the scene and five people had been taken to hospital.
“We have two cruise missile hits on Uman; a residential building and a warehouse building,” Taburets wrote on Telegram. “We are finding out the consequences. The air alert continues.”
Blasts were also heard in Kremenchuk and Poltava in central Ukraine, as well as Mykolaiv in the south, according to the Interfax Ukraine news agency and social media channels.
There were no immediate reports on the damage or any casualties in Kyiv following the attacks, with city officials saying air defence systems had destroyed at least 11 cruise missiles and two drones.
“Woke up to explosions,” a Kyiv resident told Al Jazeera via text message. “It felt like an earthquake.”
The raids are the first large-scale air attacks on Ukraine in months and come as Moscow’s forces continue to battle for control of the ruined city of Bakhmut, and as Kyiv prepares for a major counteroffensive to retake territory in the country’s east and south that is occupied by the Russians.
