MATERNITY WARD “SEVERELY DAMAGED”
The strikes targeted at least six Ukrainian regions including Kharkiv in the northeast, Lviv in the west, Dnipro in the east and Odesa in the south.
In the capital Kyiv seven people were killed, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, with damage to the building of Lukyanivska metro station located near the Artyom arms factory that Russia said it targeted early in the war.
Work was still ongoing to rescue people stuck under the rubble of the warehouse in the Shevchenko district in the afternoon, according to the city administration.
AFP journalists in Kyiv earlier saw firefighters wearing oxygen masks tackling a fire a 3,000 square metres (32,300 square feet) warehouse in the northern Podil district.
Damage to civilian facilities was also reported in other parts of the country.
The northeastern city of Kharkiv faced around 20 strikes, killing three employees at a civilian enterprise and wounding 11, governor said Oleg Synegubov.
In Dnipro in southern Ukraine, the health ministry said a maternity hospital had been “severely damaged” but the staff and patients had managed to shelter in time.
Six were killed and 28 wounded said Sergiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region where a shopping mall, private houses and administrative buildings were hit.
Lysak said there were 12 women in labour at the maternity hospital and four newborns when it was struck.
In Zaporizhzhia, on the shores on the Dnipro river, governor Yuriy Malashko reported seven dead and 13 wounded.
In the Odesa region, which has seen renewed attacks since the summer, four people were killed.
Earlier in the day, an AFP photographer saw firefighters extinguishing a blaze in a high-rise building, smoke pouring out of a hole blown in the facade, and the air thick with dust.
Strikes over Lviv in the West of Ukraine are much more rare, but the region was not spared on Friday.
One person was killed and 15 wounded as high-rise blocks of flats and two schools were damaged, the interior ministry said.
Zelenskyy said he had visited the town of Avdiivka in eastern Ukraine, which has become a key battle site since Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed to pierce through Russia’s defensive lines.
“This is one of the most difficult areas of the front line,” he wrote on Telegram, along with a video of him in front of a sign with the name of the town, giving medals to soldiers.
“I thank all those who are at the first line (of fire) for their service, for this year during which the entire country survived thanks to its soldiers,” he said.
Source: CNA
