Star Metro - Ukraine war 'existential,' Kremlin says, launching revenge strikes

AFP journalists heard air raid sirens and explosions ring out over the capital throughout the night as Ukrainian air defence batteries intercepted waves of Russian drones and missiles.

Kyiv announced that Russia had fired 45 missiles and 407 drones in the barrage, after Russian President Vladimir Putin vowed retaliation for an audacious Ukrainian attack on several Russian airbases.

President Volodymyr Zelensky in response urged allies to "decisively" ramp up pressure on Russia to halt the war, which has left tens of thousands dead over more than three years of fighting.

"We heard a drone -- we heard it coming very close, and then there was an explosion," Ksenia, a Kyiv resident, told AFP outside a multiple-storey housing block that was left with a charred and gaping hole.

"Our windows and window panes were blown out, but we got away with a slight shock," she added, standing in a courtyard littered with broken glass and debris.

The Kremlin on Friday cast its three-year invasion as nothing short of a battle for the "future" of Russia.

"For us it is an existential issue, an issue on our national interest, safety, on our future and the future of our children, of our country," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, responding to US President Donald Trump's comparison of Moscow and Kyiv to brawling children.

- 'Act decisively' -

Zelensky said at least three people had been killed in the capital, and that Russia had targeted nine regions of Ukraine, including Lviv and Volyn in the west, which border EU and NATO member Poland.

"If someone does not put pressure and gives the war more time to take lives, they are complicit and responsible. We need to act decisively," Zelensky wrote on social media.

Deadly attacks have escalated in recent weeks even as the two sides hold talks aimed at ending the conflict triggered by Russia's February 2022 invasion.

Cities and villages have been destroyed across eastern Ukraine and millions forced to flee their homes, with Russia's forces controlling around one-fifth of Ukraine's territory.

Russian aerial assaults have become larger in recent weeks as concerns build over Ukraine's strained air defence capacity.

The defence ministry in Moscow said its forces had launched the "massive" missile and drone strike in "response" to recent attacks by Kyiv on its territory.

Putin earlier this week told Trump that Moscow would retaliate over the Ukrainian attack on Sunday in which drones damaged nuclear-capable military planes at Russian air bases, including thousands of kilometres behind the front lines in Siberia.

The brazen operation, 18 months in the planning, saw Kyiv smuggle more than 100 small drones into Russia, park them near Russian air bases and unleash them in a coordinated attack.

- Retaliation -

Despite several recent rounds of meetings between Ukrainian and Russian delegations, Putin has repeatedly rejected a ceasefire, and has issued a host of sweeping demands on Ukraine if it wants to halt the fighting.

They include completely pulling troops out of four regions claimed by Russia, but which its army does not fully control, an end to Western military support, and a ban on Ukraine joining NATO.

The overnight Russian attack left multiple fires burning in various districts of the capital.

Three first responders from the state emergency service were killed while dealing with an earlier strike, Interior Minister Igor Klymenko said.

"They were working under fire to help people," he said, adding nine more were wounded and that "doctors are fighting for their lives."

Kyiv's mayor said earlier that four were killed in the capital but later revised down that toll.

Several strikes also hit the city of Lutsk and the Ternopil region in western Ukraine.

Moscow meanwhile said Ukrainian strikes overnight on Russia wounded three people in the western Tula region, while Kyiv claimed to have staged successful attacks on two air fields deep inside Russian territory.

Footage shared on social media showed a large fire and smoke billowing into the air at an oil facility that serves a military site in Russia's Saratov region, which has been frequently targeted.

The Russian defence ministry said it downed 174 Ukrainian drones overnight. Ten downed drones were headed for the Russian capital, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

F.Leblanc--SMC