Russia's 'vile' strikes kill 25 in Ukraine: Zelenskiy

KYIV:

Russia pounded Ukraine with waves of missiles and drones in one of its most "vile strikes" on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, killing at least 25 people, including ?children, and damaging industrial facilities and energy infrastructure.

The heaviest death toll was in Pryluky in Ukraine's northern Chernihiv region, where a Russian missile obliterated a five-storey residential building. Zelenskiy said 19 people died in the attack, including five children.

Zelenskiy said 25 people had been killed in the ?strikes throughout the country, with 100 injured. Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi put the death toll at 28. The president noted that the attacks coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin's birthday.

"This is the kind of birthday present that Putin gave himself: the killing of ?children, the killing of people," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

In earlier online comments, Zelenskiysaid civilians had also been killed in the capital Kyiv and in the central cities of Oleksandria and Kremenchuk during the massive attack.

In total, Russia fired 70 missiles at Ukraine overnight - many of them high-velocity ballistic munitions - and dozens of Shahed attack drones, he said.

"The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively. This was one of the most vile strikes."

In Pryluky, an excavator and dozens of rescuers with shovels sifted through rubble at the site ?where several sections of the apartment block had collapsed.

Emergency workers used ladders to get to the upper floors of what remained of the building, and brought out 15 survivors as they worked their way down through the rubble. Around 55 people were wounded in the town, regional officials said.

"There's a lot of destruction, especially in the town centre," said Danylo Savenko, deputy mayor of Pryluky, who said he had run to an air raid shelter with his wife as soon as he heard the missiles flying.