Russia pounds Ukraine in deadly strikes killing at least 24, including four children.

There is a particular cruelty in striking while the world sleeps—a violence that does not distinguish between soldier and civilian, between the machinery of war and the ordinary rhythms of human life. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, as families lay in their beds and children dreamed, Russian missiles and drones tore through cities across Ukraine, leaving behind a toll that includes the youngest among us.

At least 24 people were killed in the overnight barrage, which targeted Kyiv and at least ten other regions. Among the dead were four children, including three one-year-old boys and an eight-year-old . The strikes coincided with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 74th birthday .

The worst single attack occurred in Pryluky, a town in the northern Chernihiv region about 150 kilometers east of Kyiv. A missile struck a five-story apartment building around 6:30 a.m., reducing half of the structure to what a witness described as a smoking pile of charred concrete and twisted metal . Eighteen people were killed there, including the four children, and about 50 were injured, seven of them children. Fifteen people, including one child, were rescued from the rubble .

“We were at home, sleeping,” Olena Sayun, a 40-year-old massage therapist, told AFP at the scene. “Our windows blew out. Thank God, we covered the child with our bodies.” She described the neighborhood’s children—ages 10, 8, 14, and 11—as playmates who gathered in the courtyard every day. “We knew them all very well” .

President Volodymyr Zelensky said three of the eighteen victims in Pryluky were just twelve months old. He called the strikes “one of the most vile” in the nearly five-year conflict and accused Russia of “an absolutely deliberate choice of terror” . “They were just ordinary cities, ordinary life,” he said .

Deaths were also reported in Kyiv, where two people died in a fire in the densely populated Darnytskyi neighborhood, and in Kremenchuk, Dnipro, and Oleksandriya . Russia’s Defense Ministry said it targeted industrial facilities involved in missile and drone production, as well as port infrastructure in Odesa .

Ukraine’s air force reported that Russia launched at least 50 missiles and 130 drones overnight. While many were intercepted, Zelensky said ballistic missiles remain “the greatest challenge” for Ukraine’s air defenses, which are running low on Patriot interceptors .

The strikes came a day after Zelensky warned that intelligence indicated Russia was preparing a “massive” attack. Even with that warning, Ukraine could not fully repel the assault . In Kyiv, residents sheltered in subway stations, hauling duffel bags and sleeping mats. “The whole of Kyiv is in a state of fear,” said Iryna Rybalchenko, a bank worker .

Russia’s strategy, said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, is “to make daily life impossible for Ukrainians who want to live in peace” . For the families of Pryluky, that strategy has already succeeded.

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Sources: Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS), Radio-Canada, Edmonton Sun, The Mirror, Kyiv Post, RTV Slovenija