Russian barrage kills 10 in Ukraine as Zelenskyy heads for talks with Turkish leader

A large Russian drone and missile barrage killed 10 people and injured dozens more in Ukraine overnight, officials said Wednesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due in Turkey for talks on finding a settlement that might end Russia’s invasion of his country.

The nighttime attack hit two nine-story apartment blocks in Ternopil, a city in western Ukraine, according to Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko. Emergency crews were sifting through the rubble in daylight to find any survivors, he said. At least 37 people were reported injured, including 12 children.

Russia fired 476 strike and decoy drones, as well as 48 missiles of various types, at Ukrainian targets overnight, Ukraine’s air force said.

“Every brazen attack against ordinary life indicates that the pressure on Russia (to stop the war) is insufficient,” Zelenskyy wrote on the messaging app Telegram.

The Ukrainian leader said he would meet with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later Wednesday as part of his efforts to diplomatically isolate Russian President Vladimir Putin and bring more international pressure to bear on him.

“Foremost, we will discuss maximum capabilities to ensure that Ukraine achieves a just peace,” Zelenskyy said of his talks with Erdogan, adding that the leaders have “good relations.”

Zelenskyy also said: “We see some positions and signals from the United States, well, let’s see tomorrow.”

He didn’t elaborate but tough new American sanctions on Russia’s oil industry, devised to push Putin to the negotiating table, are due to take effect on Friday.

A senior Turkish official initially said that US special envoy Steve Witkoff would join Zelenskyy in Turkey, but backtracked later in the day and said Witkoff wouldn’t be coming.

The Ukrainian city of Ternopil, located around 200 km from the Polish border, sits in a part of relatively peaceful western Ukraine where many people from the east and south moved to as they fled danger along the front line.

Almost 50 people were injured in Russian strikes on three other Ukrainian regions.

Two Eurofighter Typhoon jets and two F-16s were scrambled in Romania when a drone entered the NATO member’s airspace during the Russian attacks, Romania’s Ministry of National Defence said.

The Polish military said that Polish and allied aircraft were deployed in the middle of the night as a preventive measure. Poland’s Rzeszow and Lublin airports were closed temporarily to prioritise military aviation, the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency said.

In northeastern Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Russian drones injured 46 people, including two girls, the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov, wrote on Telegram. Drones hit several city districts, at least 16 residential buildings, an ambulance station, a school and other civilian infrastructure, he said.

Meanwhile, the Russian Defence Ministry said Wednesday that Ukraine fired four American-supplied ATACMS missiles at the Russian city of Voronezh on Tuesday. All four were intercepted, the ministry said, but the debris damaged an orphanage and a gerontology centre. There were no casualties, the ministry said.

Ukraine’s General Staff on Tuesday reported firing ATACMS missiles at Russia without offering details.