UN Security Council meets after Russia launches biggest airstrike of war on Ukraine

New York: The United Nations Security Council met on Friday to discuss the situation in Ukraine after Ukraine and its supporters requested an urgent meeting to address missile and drone strikes by Russia, after Moscow launched its biggest air attack of the war.

Russian strikes across Ukraine on Friday killed 31 civilians and wounded more than 160 others, according to officials, and Poland said a Russian missile appeared to have flown into its airspace before returning to Ukraine.

Firefighters work on a site of a building damaged after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday.Credit: AP

After the meeting got underway , council members including the United States, France and Britain condemned the attacks on Ukraine.

The attacks were “a desperate and futile attempt by Russia to regain momentum” in its war with Ukraine, Britain’s ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward told the council. “They will not succeed.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said earlier on X that Ukraine and three dozen other UN member states had requested the Security Council meeting after the attacks, “which resulted in multiple civilian casualties and heavy destruction of civilian infrastructure.”

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the attacks by Russia on Ukraine, spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.

The city centre is filled with smoke after Russian rocket attacks on the capital of Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine.Credit: Getty

“Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure violate international humanitarian law, are unacceptable and must end immediately,” Dujarric said.

Russia unleashed its biggest air attack of the war on Ukraine on Friday, killing 31 civilians, wounding more than 160 others and hitting cities and infrastructure across the country, officials said.

NATO member Poland said a Russian missile appeared to have flown into its airspace for some 40 km before returning to Ukraine under three minutes later.

But the Russian charge d’affaires, summoned to the Polish Foreign Ministry, said Warsaw had provided no evidence of a missile entering its airspace.

The Ukrainian foreign ministry said the vast end-of-year air assault showed there should be “no talk of a truce” with the Kremlin at a time when uncertainty hangs over the future of vital Western support for Kyiv.

“Today, millions of Ukrainians awoke to the loud sound of explosions. I wish those sounds of explosions in Ukraine could be heard all around the world,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said, urging allies to continue with long-term military aid.

In the capital Kyiv at least three people were reported dead and twenty-two confirmed wounded after residential buildings and another uninhabited property were hit, police and other officials said.

Kyiv resident Mariia told Reuters she had been awoken at home by a “horrible sound” and taken shelter in her bathroom.

“It was so frightening. A missile was flying and everything was buzzing, whirring. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run down to the shelter,” she said. “As I went inside the bathroom, the mirror flew off (the wall).”

A view of Kyiv after the latest Russian attack.Credit: AP

The Air Force said it had shot down 87 cruise missiles and 27 drones out of a total of 158 aerial “targets” fired by Russia.

NATO member Poland’s military said an unidentified aerial object had entered its airspace from neighbouring Ukraine and been tracked by its air defences until its signal disappeared.

Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian Air Force, neither denied nor confirmed the report, but noted similar incidents in Poland and Romania during past Russian air strikes.

Army chief General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi said the attack had targeted critical infrastructure and industrial and military facilities. There was no immediate comment from Russia, which denies targeting civilians.

A wounded resident talks with paramedics after Russia’s missile attack in Kyiv on Friday.Credit: AP

“Russia attacked with everything it has in its arsenal... Approximately 110 missiles were fired, most of which were shot down,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram messenger.

Ukraine has been warning for weeks that Russia could be stockpiling missiles to launch a major air attack on the energy system. Last winter, millions of people were plunged into darkness when Russian strikes pounded the power grid.

The foreign ministry said Friday’s strike was “one of the largest missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and villages” since Russia launched its invasion in February 2022.

The energy ministry reported power outages in the regions of southern Odesa, northeastern Kharkiv, central Dnipropetrovsk and the area outside Kyiv.

Response

Britain is sending around 200 air defence missiles to Ukraine to help protect civilians and infrastructure from Russian drones and bombing, the British ministry of defence said on Friday.

“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is testing Ukraine’s defences and the West’s resolve, hoping that he can clutch victory from the jaws of defeat. But he is wrong,” British Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said.

As rescuers picked through the rubble of a strike that hit a house in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Viktor Chuhunov, 73, told Reuters he had been at home when he suddenly heard a powerful explosion.

“A woman died here. I don’t know whether her son was at home, maybe he was at work,” he said of the house.

Missiles also hit several infrastructure facilities in Zaporizhzhia, the interior minister said on Telegram messenger.

Five people were killed in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk where missiles struck a shopping centre, a house and a six-storey residential building, police said.

Three people were killed in the Black Sea port city of Odesa and at least 15 were wounded, including two children, the regional governor said, reporting hits on residential buildings.

In the Lviv region, which borders Poland, missile strikes were confirmed at an unnamed critical infrastructure facility, the president’s office said.

One person was killed in a damaged multi-storey residential building in the city of Lviv, the regional governor said. Three schools and a kindergarten were also damaged, the mayor said.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, a missile strike damaged a warehouse, an industrial facility, a medical facility and a transport depot, the regional governor said. One person was killed and 11 other were injured, he said.

Reuters

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