Rescue crews worked through mountains of rubble in Kyiv on Friday as Ukraine observed a day of mourning following Russia's deadliest attack on the capital this year, while fresh strikes on both sides underscored the relentless pace of the war.
At least 30 people were killed and 92 injured after Russia launched a massive barrage of missiles and drones against Kyiv on Thursday, according to city officials.
Emergency workers continued searching collapsed apartment buildings for survivors for a second straight day as forensic teams worked to identify victims.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the parents of a hospitalized 10-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl remained missing beneath the debris.
Flags flew at half-staff across the capital as residents gathered to honor the victims of one of the most destructive assaults on Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The widespread attack damaged more than 100 residential buildings, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, leaving entire neighborhoods scarred by collapsed structures, shattered windows, and burned-out homes.
"Russia has no argument left for its war other than its ballistic missiles," Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.
He accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of choosing to destroy residential neighborhoods instead of ending the conflict.
The scale of destruction stretched across multiple districts of Kyiv, marking one of the broadest attacks the city has endured during the war, now in its fifth year.
While Ukraine has recently slowed Russian advances along the roughly 750-mile (1,200-kilometer) front line and reclaimed limited territory in some areas, Moscow has intensified its long-range aerial campaign against Ukrainian cities.
Russian officials said Thursday's assault was retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia.
Ukraine has steadily expanded its own long-range strikes in recent months, targeting energy facilities and military infrastructure far beyond the front lines. Those attacks have contributed to fuel shortages in Russia, prompting the country to increase gasoline imports despite being one of the world's largest oil producers.
Last month, Russian strikes also damaged a centuries-old cathedral in Kyiv that holds deep religious significance for Orthodox Christians in both Ukraine and Russia.
The violence continued overnight into Friday.
A Russian drone struck a residential building in the Romny community of Ukraine's northeastern Sumy region, igniting a fire that killed four people, including a woman and her daughter, who was not yet 2 years old, regional military administration head Oleh Hryhorov said.
The victims also included another woman and an elderly man. Three other people were injured.
In Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said another Russian strike killed one person and wounded five others.
Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 105 drones and two missiles overnight.
Russia's Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said its air defenses intercepted 155 Ukrainian drones overnight over Russian territory and the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula.
Both countries reported civilian casualties from the latest exchange of attacks.
Officials installed by Moscow in the Russian-occupied part of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region said a Ukrainian strike on a market killed five people. Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said the attack struck civilians shopping for groceries.
Russian authorities also reported one person killed in the Belgorod region after what local officials described as a Ukrainian missile strike on civilian infrastructure. Another person was killed in the neighboring Bryansk region during drone attacks, according to regional authorities.
The latest wave of attacks highlights the increasingly reciprocal nature of the conflict, with both Russia and Ukraine launching frequent long-range strikes that reach well beyond the battlefield and inflict mounting civilian casualties.
