Russian strikes killed at least 10 people in Ukraine on Friday (April 3, 2026), officials said, as Moscow launched the latest in an increasing number of daytime barrages.

Moscow has been firing aerial broadsides at Ukraine throughout its more than four-year invasion, mostly at night, but in recent weeks it has stepped up daytime attacks.

The Russian military used more than 500 drones and dozens of missiles in its salvo on Friday, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of intensifying attacks ahead of Catholic Easter on Sunday, “turning what should have been silence in the skies into an Easter escalation”.

Images from Ukrainian emergency services showed damaged residential buildings, with a block of flats ripped open and rubble strewn on a street.

The attack killed one person and left eight wounded in the capital region of Kyiv, said regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk.

“Unfortunately, animals were also affected by the attack — approximately 20 animals died due to damage to a veterinary clinic,” Mr. Kalashnyk added.

Some residents of the capital sheltered in the metro or in basements, AFP reporters saw, but many people sat in cafes unfazed by the attacks and despite blaring air raid sirens.

In the Kyiv region, “a drone struck a residential building in Obukhiv, and another attack occurred between a kindergarten and a school in Vyshneve, damaging homes,” said Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

Three people were killed in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, according to authorities. One person was killed in the northwestern Zhytomyr region, while attacks on the frontline Kharkiv, Donetsk and Kherson regions killed five others, local officials said.

Easter truce?

The barrage prompted emergency power outages in several regions, operator Ukrenergo said.

“This is how Moscow responds to Ukraine’s Easter ceasefire proposals — with brutal attacks,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga.

Mr. Zelenskyy said earlier this week he was ready for a truce over the Easter holidays, but the Kremlin said it had not received “clearly formulated” proposals.

Ukraine has accused Russia of prolonging the war to capture more territory, and says Moscow is not interested in peace.

Russia denies targeting civilians.

Talks between the two warring parties, mediated by the United States, have been stalled by the war in the Middle East.

In comments to reporters, including from AFP, published on Friday, Mr. Zelenskyy said he had invited an American delegation to Ukraine to relaunch negotiations with Moscow.

“The delegation will do everything possible in the current conditions — during the war with Iran — to come to Kyiv,” Mr. Zelenskyy said.

“The American group can come to us and, after us, go to Moscow. If it does not work out with three parties, let’s do it this way,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys have been engaged in three-way shuttle diplomacy with Ukrainian and Russian teams in a bid to end the war.

But these have stalled as Washington has been occupied with the aerial campaign on Iran it launched in late February.

Amid the West Asia war, Ukraine has sought to leverage its expertise in fighting off Russian drones similar to those Iran has been using in retaliatory attacks across Gulf nations.

Last week, Mr. Zelenskyy visited several countries and signed defence agreements with Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

He also suggested Ukraine could help unblock the Strait of Hormuz, whose closure by Iran has rattled the global economy.

He did not specify how Ukraine could contribute, but cited Kyiv’s experience in restoring passage through the Black Sea, which Russia had blocked at the beginning of its invasion.

Published – April 03, 2026 09:44 pm IST

Cherngiv:

Rescuers were removing mountains of rubble on Thursday from the site of a lethal Russian missile strike on Ukraine’s historic city of Chernigiv, where at least 18 people were killed in an attack that has prompted fresh pleas for allies to boost Kyiv’s overstretched air defence systems.

Three Russian missiles crashed into the northern Ukrainian city on Wednesday, leaving pools of blood on the street at the scene of one strike, where rescue workers searched for survivors and carried away the wounded on stretchers.

The official death count rose to 18 as of Thursday morning, with 77 people — including four children — injured, according to Ukraine’s emergency services department.

As President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed for more help from Western allies, the US House of Representatives finally announced a vote on a massive military aid package that includes about $61 billion in long-delayed support for Kyiv, a move welcomed by President Joe Biden.

Chernigiv resident Olga Samoilenko told AFP she and her children found shelter in the corridor of their apartment building after the first missile exploded.

“Our neighbours were already there. We started shouting for everyone to fall to the floor. They did. There were two more explosions. Then we ran to the parking lot,” the 33-year-old said.

– Zelensky questions West’s resolve –

Mayor Oleksandr Lomako said more than a dozen buildings had been damaged in the attack, while other officials said dozens of vehicles and medical and educational facilities were also damaged.

A 25-year-old policewoman on sick leave was among those killed after suffering a severe shrapnel injury, the interior minister announced.

AFP journalists at the scene saw a body being pulled from the rubble and an eight-storey hotel building gutted by the strike where municipal workers were using a crane to clear debris.

Nearby apartments, a beauty salon and beer shop were among structures whose windows were blown out by the attack.

The Chernigiv region, which borders Belarus to the north, was partially occupied at the beginning of the Russian invasion but has been spared fighting for around two years since Russian forces retreated.

Zelensky blamed Russia for the attack but also said the West should do more to help defend Ukraine’s skies.

“This would not have happened if Ukraine had received sufficient air defence equipment and if the world’s determination to resist Russian terror had been sufficient,” he said.

– ‘Same level of defence’ –

Addressing the European Council by video link later Wednesday, Zelensky said Ukraine should enjoy the same cover from aerial attacks as Israel and pleaded for more air defence systems.

“Here in Ukraine, in our part of Europe, unfortunately, we don’t have the level of defence that we saw recently in the Middle East,” Zelensky said.

Zelensky was referring to the interception of Iran’s drone and missile barrage on Israel last Saturday.

“Our Ukrainian sky, the sky of our neighbors deserves the same level of defence.”

The Ukrainian president added: “All lives are equally valuable.”

In Washington, Biden applauded the planned vote in Congress on the massive new Ukraine aid package, scheduled for Saturday after months of political wrangling, and called on American lawmakers to pass it.

“I will sign this into law immediately to send a message to the world: ‘We stand with our friends, and we won’t let Iran or Russia succeed’,” he said in a White House statement.

Chernigiv lies around 145 kilometres (90 miles) north of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and had a pre-war population of around 285,000 people.

The city was badly damaged when Russian tanks swept into Ukraine from Belarusian territory in February 2022 and besieged the city until April of that year.

 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)