A massive overnight barrage of Russian drone and missile strikes has left at least six people dead and triggered nationwide air alerts across Ukraine.

Local authorities reported that the attacks caused widespread destruction to residential infrastructure, with emergency crews working through the rubble in several regions on Saturday.

In the eastern Kharkiv region, a ballistic missile strike obliterated part of a five-story apartment building in the Kyivsky district.

Kharkiv regional military administration head Oleg Synegubov confirmed the destruction on Telegram, while Mayor Igor Terekhov reported that five people were killed in the collapse.

The strike also left 10 others injured, including three minors: a six-year-old boy, an 11-year-old boy, and a 17-year-old girl.

Meanwhile, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Oleksandr Ganzha, the head of the regional administration, reported that one person was killed and another wounded following a relentless offensive in the Nikopol district.

Local officials noted that Russian forces targeted the area approximately 20 times using a combination of drones, artillery, and rockets.

The violence extended to southern Ukraine, where a drone strike in Zaporizhzhia wounded an infant, according to regional official Ivan Fedorov.

In Chuguiv, also located in the Kharkiv region, Mayor Halyna Minayeva reported that two additional civilians were injured when a drone struck a home in the city center.

The intensity of the assault triggered air-raid sirens across the entirety of Ukraine throughout the night.

Observing the scale of the bombardment, the Polish air force announced that it had scrambled military aircraft to monitor and protect its own airspace along the border with Ukraine, a standard precautionary measure taken during large-scale Russian aerial operations.

Source: AFP