Russia hit over 60 missiles across Ukraine on Friday

At the site of one attempted strike in Kyiv, military commanders told The Associated Press that the city’s territorial defense mobile group had unexpectedly — almost unbelievably — shot down a cruise missile with a machine gun.

“Almost impossible to hit a missile with a machine gun, but it was done,” said a commander who goes by the call sign “Hera.”

Another commander, a military post chief named “Yevhen,” said the machine gunner who intercepted the missile. “reacted quickly” and fired, and green sparks flew from the rocket as it began to spin and tumble to the ground.

A day earlier, Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned that if the United States delivers sophisticated Patriot air defense systems to Ukraine, such systems and any crews that accompany them would also be a legitimate target for the Russian military. Washington rejected that threat.

Analysts have said Russian strikes targeting energy infrastructure have been part of a new strategy to try to freeze Ukrainians into submission after recent battlefield losses by Russian forces. Officials and experts say that has only strengthened the resolve of Ukrainians to face up to Russia’s invasion, while Moscow tries to buy time for a possible offensive in coming months after the current battlefield stalemate.

In Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, a missile slammed into a four-story residential building and left a gaping hole in its upper floors, with rubble spilling onto the ground. Two people were killed and at least eight others were injured, including three children, regional Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.

Rescue teams were combining through the debris in a hunt for survivors or other victims.

The southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia was struck by about 15 Russian missiles, regional Gov. Oleksandr Starukh said. He did not specify the exact location of the strikes, but said infrastructure had been damaged.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that the city was without electricity. Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov reported three strikes on the city’s critical infrastructure. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in at least four districts and urged residents to go to shelters.

“The attack on the capital continues,” he wrote on the social media app. Subway services in the capital were suspended, he said, as city residents flocked inside its tunnels to seek shelter.

Ukrzaliznytsia, the national railway operator, said power was out in a number of stations in the eastern and central Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, due to damage to the energy infrastructure. But trains continued to run by switching from electric power to steam-engine power, which had been readied as a backup.

In neighboring Moldova, the state-owned energy company Moldelectrica reported disruptions to its electricity network as a result of Russia’s strikes on Ukraine, and warned of a “high risk” of power outages.

Moldova — whose Soviet-era systems remain interconnected with Ukraine’s — has already suffered two massive blackouts in recent months as Russia attacked Ukraine’s energy grid.

The previous such round of massive Russian air strikes across the country took place on Dec. 5. Ukrainian authorities have reported some successes in intercepting and downing incoming missiles, rockets and armed drones.

Evgeniy Maloletka in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, and Stephen McGrath in Sighisoara, Romania, contributed to this report.