Widespread missile strikes reported across Ukrainian cities

A string of Russian missiles struck a number of Ukrainian regions early Thursday, according to multiple reports, as Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky called on the U.S. for more military aid.

The governor of the Odesa region, Maksym Marchenko, said that a missile attack had hit the port city of the Black Sea, according to a post on the messaging platform Telegram. Marchenko said the attack hit a power plant in the city, causing widespread power outages. The blasts also hit residential areas, but no casualties were reported.

The governor of the Kharkiv region, the second-largest city in the nation, also said that his city had been hit with 15 strikes. Other regions across the country were reported to have been hit with strikes, including Dnipro, a city in the center of the country, according to Reuters.

The news of the widespread bombing campaigns comes as Ukraine said Wednesday that it had been able to repel the Russian advance on Bakhmut, a city on the eastern part of the country. Russian forces had claimed control over the eastern part of the city.

They also come as Zelensky appeared on U.S. television on Wednesday night, calling on U.S. lawmakers to provide Ukraine with even more funding and equipment to aid in its war against Russia. 

“What fighter jets could do is they could help us to defend ourselves,” Zelensky argued on CNN. “It’s a part of the air defense … and we don’t have the fighter jets to deal with it and to counteract the Russian hits. We really need this.”