Ukrainian emergency personnel operating at the site of a heavily damaged residential building following Russian air strike in the city of Ternopil on Wednesday — AFP KYIV, Nov 19 (BBC/Reuters): At least 20 people have been killed including two children in a Russian drone and missile attack on the western city of Ternopil that hit two blocks of flats, Ukrainian officials say.
Another 66 people were wounded, 16 of them children, police said, in one of the deadliest Russian strikes on western Ukraine since the full-scale war began in February 2022.
Two other western regions were hit, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk, and a drone attack targeted three districts of the northern city of Kharkiv, wounding more than 30 people. Photos posted online showed buildings and cars ablaze.
Power cuts were affecting a number of regions across the country, Ukraine's energy ministry said.
Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had fired more than 470 drones and 47 missiles, leaving "significant destruction". He warned that people could be trapped under the rubble in Ternopil.
The devastation caused by the Russian strikes on Ternopil soon became clear. A video shared by Zelensky showed that one of the two blocks of flats had completely caved in. The interior minister Ihor Klymenko said it had been destroyed between the third and the ninth floor.
Plumes of smoke poured from windows and small fires burned outside the tenement.
A giant smoke cloud rose in the distance behind the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ternopil, as sirens blared throughout the city. Energy facilities, transport and civil infrastructure were damaged elsewhere in western Ukraine.
The energy sector came under attack in Ivano-Frankivsk region where two of three people reported wounded were children. The head of Lviv region said an energy facility had been struck.
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