KYIV: Relentless Russian barrages of drones and missiles pounded on Ukraine’s central-eastern city of Dnipro for 20 hours straight, killing six people and wounding dozens, local authorities said on Saturday.

The attack — the largest ever on the city — began overnight and lasted well into the afternoon, coming in waves that hit homes, businesses and energy infrastructure.

“20 hours... For more than 20 awful hours, the Russians attacked Dnipro in waves. They struck with missiles and drones,” said mayor Borys Filatov, describing it as “the largest-scale attack on Dnipro”.

Rescuers spent hours sifting through debris despite the ongoing strikes, clearing out the rubble of bombed apartment buildings and searching for survivors and bodies, photos from the Ukrainian emergency service showed. One apartment building was struck twice at different times, authorities said.

British fighter jets put on alert after drone crashes in Romania

The attack killed six people and wounded 47. Among the wounded was the mayor’s deputy, who was “nearly killed”, Filatov said. Another six people were wounded in the wider Dnipropetrovsk region.

Strikes also hit the neighbouring Zaporizhzhia region, killing one person and wounding four in a civilian minibus, said regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov.

Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 619 drones and 47 missiles overnight, adding that most of them had been repelled. Russia has recently shifted from previously mostly nightly air raids to longer, periodic strikes that begin overnight and continue well into the daytime.

‘Massive strike’

Russia’s defence ministry said it had “launched a massive strike” on Ukrainian military targets over the past 24 hours. Moscow denies having targeted civilians throughout the four-year war. Following the barrage, a drone crashed in Romania, a Nato and EU country bordering Ukraine, local authorities said. More than 200 people were evacuated as a precaution, and British fighter jets stationed in Romania were scrambled.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, on a visit to Azerbaijan, called for a stronger international response to Russia’s attacks.

“It is important that the world does not remain silent about what is happening and that this Russian war in Europe is not overshadowed by the war in Iran,” he said on social media. “We count on the timely implementation of each of our political agreements to strengthen air defence,” he added.

The industrial hub of Dniprope­trovsk lies more than 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the front line, which snakes through eastern and southern Ukraine.

Russian troops have captured a sliver of territory in the wider Dnipropetrovsk region, which is not one of the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed to have anne­xed after its invasion.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2026