PRYLUKY — Russian attacks across Ukraine on Wednesday killed at least 28 people, including five children who died when a missile slammed into an apartment block in the north of the country as they slept.

Windows shattered in the powerful blast in Pryluky, in the Chernigiv region, reducing half of the five-storey building to a smoking pile of charred concrete and twisted metal.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said three of the dead were just 12 months old while another was aged eight. Another child’s body was pulled from the rubble in the evening, the interior ministry said.

Ukrainian authorities said that 20 people were killed in the Pryluky strike.

Seven other children were among dozens wounded, Zelensky said, accusing Russia of knowingly striking “ordinary cities, ordinary life”.

“The continued use of missiles against Ukraine, against our people, our children, is an absolutely deliberate choice of terror,” he said.

“We were at home, sleeping,” Olena Sayun, a 40-year-old massage therapist, told AFP.

“Our windows blew out. Thank God, we covered the child with our bodies. My husband got a few cuts on his back and I did too.

“The child just had a nervous breakdown, got very scared. We immediately ran to the bathroom and then, while everything in the apartment was being blown apart, we stayed in there.”

The strike, which residents said happened at about 6:30 am (0330 GMT), came after Zelensky on Tuesday warned of a “massive” Russian attack, particularly targeting energy infrastructure.

Two people were killed when missiles slammed into a high-rise building at Kremenchuk in central Ukraine, while two others died in Oleksandriya, he added.

In Kyiv, two people died in a fire caused by a strike in the densely populated Darnytskyi neighbourhood, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

Two more people were killed in later strikes, he said.