Russia unleashed one of its largest aerial assaults of the war on Ukraine overnight into Wednesday, firing dozens of missiles and more than a hundred drones at cities across the country and killing at least 20 people, including children, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukraine’s air force said Russian forces launched 130 drones, 48 cruise missiles and an unspecified number of ballistic missiles in the overnight barrage, with air defenses shooting down 161 of the incoming targets. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired roughly 70 missiles in total alongside the drone swarm, in an attack that struck hardest in Kyiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv.

The deadliest single strike hit a five-story apartment building in Pryluky, in the northern Chernihiv region, where emergency crews said 14 people, including four children, were killed and 50 others wounded. Additional deaths were reported in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district, in Dnipro, Kremenchuk and Oleksandriya, bringing the overnight death toll to at least 20.

Zelenskyy said the attack targeted Ukraine’s power grid as winter approaches. “One of the key targets was our energy infrastructure,” he said, describing retaliatory Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities and a military training ground as a “just” response that helps curb Moscow’s ability to “finance and wage its brutal war.”

Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, called the night’s bombardment “an act of terror,” saying “Ukraine has once again been hit by Russian missiles throughout the night.” Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported two deaths in the Darnytskyi district after a fire broke out following the strikes.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence described the operation as a “massive strike” aimed at military-industrial facilities, saying it had hit sites linked to the manufacture of Flamingo cruise missiles and drones, as well as port and ship-repair infrastructure in the Odesa region.

The exchange of fire extended to the Black Sea, where drone strikes hit two commercial vessels on Tuesday; one caught fire and the other sank. Bulgarian search teams later called off their rescue effort after finding no survivors, underscoring the growing risk to commercial shipping in waters that remain a critical corridor for grain and fertilizer exports.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan weighed in on the fallout, pressing Russian President Vladimir Putin to guarantee safe navigation in the Black Sea and renewing his offer to broker direct talks between Moscow and Kyiv. Ankara’s presidency said safe maritime access through the Black Sea remains a priority for Turkey.

The overnight assault is among the heaviest Russia has launched against Ukrainian cities in recent months, underscoring how the war, now well into its fourth year, continues to exact a civilian toll even as diplomatic efforts to end it, including Erdogan’s renewed mediation push, remain stalled. For food-importing nations, including several across West Africa, continued disruption to Black Sea shipping lanes carries its own ripple effects on global grain and fertilizer prices, a reminder that a war fought thousands of miles away still reaches dinner tables far from the front lines.

Sources: Al Jazeera