Russian drone slams into block of flats in deadly wave of strikes across Kyiv

At least four people were killed when a Russian drone penetrated an apartment block in eastern Kyiv, during a wave of strikes throughout the Ukrainian capital.

Condemning the attacks as vile and calculated, President Volodymyr Zelensky said about 430 drones and 18 missiles had been launched and dozens of high-rise buildings damaged.

As emergency workers sifted through the wreckage of the block of flats in the Lisovyi area, one Kyiv resident called Vita described how the drone had pierced the building, exploding on the other side.

Several other regions were also targeted. A drone attack on a market at Chornomorsk in the south of the country killed two people.

The Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk was hit in an overnight Ukrainian attack. Fire broke out at the major Sheskharis oil refinery, and a ship and apartment blocks were hit, officials said.

Krasnodar governor Veniamin Kondratyev said three crew members and another man were hurt in the attack which damaged the main oil depot and a container terminal.

President Zelensky said Ukraine had fired long-range "Long Neptune" cruise missiles during its attacks on Russia overnight, without specifying what they targeted.

Mayor Andrei Kravchenko has declared a state of emergency and Reuters reports that oil exports have been halted.

Kyiv fire service said the drone destroyed several floors of the entire block of flats

In Kyiv, residential buildings came under attack "in practically every district", the head of the city's military administration Tymur Tkachenko said on Telegram.

He issued a warning to take shelter a minute after midnight local time on Thursday night, writing "it's loud in Kyiv".

The fire service in the Lisovyi neighbourhood on Kyiv's left bank said later the drone had hit the seventh floor of an apartment block. When it exploded all the floors - from the eighth down to the fourth - collapsed, a spokesman told the BBC.

Vita said she saw all four bodies being pulled out of the apartment a few doors down from hers: "I saw it with my own eyes."

Two cranes hoisted emergency workers outside the block, as crews combed through the destroyed building, throwing broken sections of wall and shattered glass to the ground.

Falling debris and fires damaged multiple high-rise apartment buildings, a hospital, school and administrative buildings, according to emergency services.

A drone killed at least two people at a market in Chornomorsk in southern Ukraine

More than 40 people were rescued, they added, including 14 from a fire in a residential building. Another person was rescued after being pulled from beneath rubble, they said.

Kyiv's energy infrastructure was badly hit, leaving some buildings in the capital without heat, officials said.

"The attack was massive, with drones, with ballistic [missiles], with lots of air defence working," Ukrainian MP Lisa Yasko told the BBC. "Very often there was the feeling that your bed was just shaking together with the windows."

Medical teams were deployed to all fires, officials said, while Mayor Vitali Klitschko said nine people were being treated in hospital with one man in an "extremely serious condition".

Witnesses described how a Russian drone pierced the entire block of flats in Kyiv before exploding

Ukraine's air force warned drones and guided bombs had been targeting several other regions, including Sumy.

The overnight strikes follow the deaths of six people in another Russian offensive less than a week ago that also damaged residential buildings and energy infrastructure.

Russia says its attacks on energy targets, now a familiar part of the war, are aimed at the Ukrainian military, although Kyiv has long rejected that claim.

President Zelensky has called for "no exceptions" to Western sanctions on Russian energy - although shortly after the US granted Hungary one such exemption.

US President Donald Trump had initially announced the sanctions on Russian oil after saying ceasefire talks with Russian President Vladimir were not progressing.