Russian attack on Ternopil kills 25 in one of deadliest strikes on western Ukraine

Energy facilities, transport and civil infrastructure were damaged elsewhere in western Ukraine.
The energy sector came under attack in Ivano-Frankivsk region where two of three people reported wounded were children.
The head of Lviv region said an energy facility had been struck.
Russia has recently upped its attacks on Ukraine’s energy grid, as the fourth winter of the war approaches, hoping to damage morale as well as logistics and Ukraine’s own defence industry.
Electrical supplies are already being rationed, and after the latest attacks the energy ministry announced more power cuts across the country.
The Russian strikes came a day after Ukraine’s military said it had fired US-supplied longer-range Atacms missiles at military targets inside Russia, the first time they have admitted using the Atacms on Russian soil.
Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of firing four of the missiles at the southern city of Voronezh but said they had all been shot down by air defences.
Meanwhile, Zelensky travelled to the Turkish capital Ankara, in an attempt to revive a US bid to end the war. He was due to hold talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan amid reports that President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff has been working on a plan with Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev.
The Kremlin said no Russian representative would be joining the talks in Ankara. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on a media report that the US and Russia had been working on a peace plan for Ukraine.
“In this case, there is nothing new that we can inform you about,” Peskov told journalists on Wednesday.
His comments came amid reports that Zelensky was due to meet two top US army officials in Kyiv on Thursday. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and Army Chief of Staff General Randy George are the most senior US military officials to visit the Ukrainian capital since President Donald Trump took office, Reuters reports.
In a separate development, Romania’s defence ministry said a Russian drone had flown about 8km (5 miles) through its airspace in the early hours of Wednesday. The drone then crossed into Ukraine and Moldova before returning to Romania, it said.
Romanian and German air force planes were scrambled in response to the incursion and the defence ministry said it was unclear where the drone had come down.
Poland also deployed jets early on Wednesday and temporarily closed two airports in the southeast in response to the strikes in western Ukraine.
As the fourth anniversary of the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches next February, Moscow and Kyiv remain fundamentally opposed in their views of how to end the war.
Earlier this month Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russia’s conditions for a peace deal had not changed since Putin laid them out in 2024.




