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Russia launched its biggest ever attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad early on Saturday, as part of a large wave of strikes across the country involving hundreds of kamikaze drones and ballistic missiles.
The six-hour bombardment was the worst in the city’s history. The head of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Sergey Lysak, said a factory was damaged, a fire station destroyed and a five-storey residential building hit.
“A hellish night and morning for Pavlohrad. The most intense attack on the city. Explosion after explosion. Russian terrorists targeted it with missiles and drones,” Lysak said.
Drones could be heard flying over Pavlohrad in the early hours of Saturday. There were cacophonous booms and orange explosions lighting up the night sky. The streets echoed with machine-gun fire as anti-aircraft units tried to shoot them down.
In the morning, thick black smoke hung above the city. There were several fires. One exhausted resident, Oleh, said it was the worst night he had known. “Nobody slept. We were all in shelters. There was a thunderstorm as well. We had explosions and rain together,” he said.
The attack came soon after Gen Keith Kellogg, Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, flew back to Washington after a six-day visit to Kyiv. This week the White House announced a large-scale arms package to Ukraine, including additional Patriot anti-aircraft systems, to be paid for by European allies.
The Kremlin refrained from carrying out a large-scale bombardment while Kellogg was in the country. Social media was awash with memes depicting Kellogg as a cat protecting the capital, since Keith sounds similar to “kit”, or cat in Ukrainian.
On Friday, Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev promised Moscow would escalate its aerial attacks in response to the EU’s latest sanctions package, which was agreed after the pro-Kremlin government in Slovakia dropped its objections.
The city of Pavlohrad is a strategic hub for the Dnipropetrovsk oblast. Russian troops are close to capturing territory in the region – which borders Donetsk province – for the first time since Vladimir Putin’s 2022 invasion. In recent days they have captured several neighbouring villages.
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Early on Saturday, Russian forces also targeted the Black Sea port of Odesa, setting fire to a nine-storey apartment building, the city’s mayor said. Five people were rescued from the top floor, and one woman subsequently died.
Odesa’s mayor, Hennady Trukhanov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said at least 20 drones had converged on the city, a frequent target of Russian strikes. “Civilian structure has been damaged as a result of the attack,” Trukhanov wrote. “A high-rise apartment block is on fire. Rescuers are taking people out from the flames.”
Ukraine’s new prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said Moscow had launched another “brutal attack” on Odesa and other Ukrainian cities. “One person killed, several more wounded, families destroyed. This is the cost of hesitation. Without bold response, the strikes will come again,” she said.
