Russian Barrage Kills at Least 24 Across Ukraine, 18 in One Pryluky Apartment Block

Since Russia's full-scale invasion more than 4½ years ago, the ground war has stalled while the air war has grown. Wednesday's attack is the latest sign of it.

Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv and a dozen other Ukrainian regions overnight into Wednesday, October 7. Ukrainian officials say at least 24 civilians were killed, including four children, and around 60 were wounded. Early tallies put the death toll at 21. It rose as rescuers worked through the rubble.

The strike coincided with Vladimir Putin's 74th birthday.

Pryluky takes the worst of it

The deadliest hit was in Pryluky, in the northern Chernihiv region. A Russian strike destroyed an apartment block there, killing 18 people and wounding about 50, authorities said. The earlier count from the site was 15 dead.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said three of the children killed in the missile strike on the building were 1 year old. The fourth was 8.

In Kremenchuk, in the Poltava region, two people were killed and seven injured, according to Vitalii Diakivnych, head of the regional military administration. A rescue operation was still continuing. Zelenskyy said deaths were also recorded in three other cities, including Kyiv.

All casualty figures come from Ukrainian officials and have not been independently verified.

Warned in advance, defenseless anyway

Zelenskyy had warned the day before that Ukrainian intelligence concluded Russia was massing for a "massive" strike. Knowing did not help much.

The problem is ballistic missiles. Ukraine has no ammunition for its U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, so it cannot stop them. Zelenskyy said Ukraine is searching worldwide for available Patriot missiles, which are in short supply because of the Iran war.

"Russian ballistic missiles remain the greatest challenge. And air defense packages for us right now are a vital necessity," Zelenskyy said.

Russia is also fielding new jet-powered drones that fly high and fast. Ukraine is racing to build a new generation of interceptors fast enough to catch them, but that work is not finished.

What Kyiv and Brussels say Russia is doing

Zelenskyy called the strike one meant to hit "painfully and demonstratively." European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen went further on X: "Russia is pursuing a deliberate strategy of terror. Trying to make daily life impossible for Ukrainians who want to live in peace."

Russia has hit apartment blocks, supermarket warehouses, gas stations, data centers and Kyiv's Dnipro bridges in recent months. When Russia's Defense Ministry confirmed an earlier strike on a Kyiv bridge, it said the bridge was used for troop movements and military cargo. Russia has not been shown to have given a military rationale for Wednesday's residential targets.

Moscow has not been shown in this reporting to have commented on the Pryluky strike. What Russia says it was aiming at remains an open question.

A war of attrition in the sky

The fighting along the roughly 1,250-kilometer front line has been virtually deadlocked in recent months. Both sides have turned toward long-range strikes. Ukraine has been hitting Russia's oil industry and businesses. Russia has answered with ballistic missiles and drones against Ukrainian cities.

Western analysts say Putin is pressing ahead because he believes Ukrainians will buckle and Kyiv's Western backers will not stay the course.

Diplomacy offers little near-term relief. U.S.-led peace efforts appear unlikely to produce a short-term result. The possibility of low-level technical talks is still under discussion, with nothing scheduled in the reporting.

The unrelenting aerial attacks are hurting Russia too, but the damage could be far worse for a country Ukraine's size.

Zelenskyy framed the aim of the strikes as psychological. "That is exactly what the enemy is counting on," he said, describing a goal of keeping Ukrainians afraid to fall asleep or let their children out of sight.

The next test is whether any Patriot interceptors reach Ukraine before the next ballistic salvo. Kyiv's search for available missiles continues, and no source has confirmed a delivery.