KYIV/WARSAW: A Russian missile strike destroyed a family home in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, leaving 10 members of the same family believed dead, according to Ukrainian officials, as Russia launched another large-scale overnight assault across the country.
Ukraine’s emergency services confirmed that six people had been identified among the dead, while four others were presumed killed pending formal identification.
According to Ukraine’s air force, Russia launched 74 missiles and 284 drones during the overnight attack, marking another major assault in the more than four-year conflict, which has seen a rise in civilian casualties.
In Kyiv, thousands of residents sought shelter in crowded metro stations after explosions were heard shortly after midnight. The western city of Lviv also came under attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the missile destroyed the home of the Voronov family near the eastern city of Kryvyi Rig, his hometown.
“The Russians used their ballistic missile to destroy an ordinary house belonging to an ordinary family,” Zelensky said on social media.
“It was an ordinary home, blown into smithereens,” he added. “The Voronov family: mother Olena, father Artem, seven children,” and a grandchild, he said.
He said the youngest presumed victim was just one and a half years old.
Sergiy Kovtoniuk, spokesperson for the State Emergency Service in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, said rescuers recovered 17 body fragments from the site, with forensic examinations still underway.
“It can be preliminarily stated that all 10 people who were in the house have died,” Kovtoniuk said.
Photographs released by regional authorities showed emergency workers searching through the rubble of the destroyed home, with wooden beams and concrete debris scattered across the property.
Crater found in Poland
Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 55 of the missiles and 265 drones launched by Russia but acknowledged ongoing difficulties in stopping advanced ballistic missiles increasingly used by Moscow.
In neighbouring Poland, authorities discovered a crater measuring around 10 metres wide in a field roughly 80 kilometres from the Ukrainian border after an unidentified object was detected on radar during the Russian attack.
Following an investigation, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said evidence pointed to a Russian missile.
“From the analysis of most of the traces, the recovered fragments point to a Russian Kh-101 missile,” Tusk told journalists near the crater.
Zelensky again appealed to Ukraine’s allies for additional air defence systems capable of intercepting ballistic missiles.
“Given the critical shortage of air-defence missiles from our partners, our warriors are accomplishing truly incredible things,” he said.
The Ukrainian president discussed Ukraine’s air defence needs, including anti-ballistic capabilities, during talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House on Tuesday.
