Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday Ukraine is “fighting for its life” after Russia launched an enormous attack across Ukraine.
In his daily address, Zelenskyy said the barrage involved nearly 160 missiles and drones, describing the assault as the heaviest attack by what he called “human scum.”
Zelenskyy said rescue operations are underway in the cities hit by the Russian attack.
“We will respond to Russian terrorists for every strike. Terror never gains in playing against people,” Zelenskyy said.
Russian drone strikes continued against cities in Ukraine Saturday. Ukrainian army officials reported 10 Iranian-made Shahed drones had been shot down across the Kherson, Khmelnytskyi and Mykolaiv regions.
Meanwhile, officials in Moscow said Saturday Russian air defenses shot down dozens of Ukrainian drones over Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol and Kursk regions. In a statement, the Defense Ministry reported a number of casualties, including a child.
The United Nations Security Council met Friday to address Russia’s “most massive aerial attack” across Ukraine since the beginning of the war in February 2022, launching 122 missiles and dozens of drones, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said earlier on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that Ukraine and three dozen other U.N. member states requested the Security Council meeting after the attacks, “which resulted in multiple civilian casualties and heavy destruction of civilian infrastructure.”
Russia’s missile and drone strikes killed at least 31 civilians and injured more than 160 people. Authorities believe others are buried under the rubble and say the death toll will likely rise.
The British Defense Ministry said Saturday in its daily intelligence update on Ukraine that the daily number of Russian casualties per day in Ukraine, dead and alive, has risen by almost 300%, compared with last year. The increase in the number of casualties was reported to the British ministry by Ukraine.
The increase, the British ministry said, can be attributed to “the degradation of Russia’s forces and its transition to a lower quality, high quantity mass army since the ‘partial mobilization’ of reservists in September 2022.”
It would “likely take” Russia five to 10 years to rebuild its highly trained military units, the report said.
If casualties continue at the same rate, the British ministry said, Russia will have over half a million personnel killed and wounded by 2025, after three years of war.
In comparison, the Soviet Union suffered 70,000 casualties in the nine-year Soviet-Afghan War, the British ministry said.