Russia unleashed a massive barrage of missile and drone strikes across Ukraine – including undetectable hypersonic missiles – across Ukraine Thursday, killing at least six civilians and causing Europe’s largest nuclear power plant to go offline for hours.

The overnight attacks against residential buildings and key infrastructure was the largest seen in Ukraine in nearly a month.

Ukrainian officials said the deadly volley included an unprecedented six Kinzhal hypersonic cruise missiles, which Moscow’s forces have not deployed since the first months of the war, now in its second year.

“The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them. They won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement released on social media. 
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that its forces had carried out a “massive retaliatory strike” as payback for last week’s raid on the Bryansk region in western Russia which was blamed on Ukrainian saboteurs – a claim Kyiv has denied. 

“High-precision long-range air, sea and land-based weapons, including the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system, hit key elements of Ukraine’s military infrastructure,” including drone bases and facilities that repair arms, Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.

In all, Russia launched 81 missiles and eight Iranian-made Shahed drones, according to Ukraine’s chief commander of the armed forces, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

The Ukrainian military claimed it had successfully shot down 34 cruise missiles and four drones, but its air defenses lack the capability to intercept the sophisticated hypersonic Kinzhals.

Ukrainian officials said it was the first time they had been pummeled with so many of Moscow’s highly valued nuclear-capable munitions.  

Russia is believed to have just a few dozen Kinzhals, which fly faster than the speed of sound and are designed to carry nuclear warheads with a range of more than 1,200 miles.

The nighttime airstrike cut a wide path of death and destruction through Ukraine, including in areas located far from the front lines.

Five civilians were killed in the Lviv region in western Ukraine and another person perished in a missile strike in the Dnipro region.

Three civilians were separately killed by artillery fire at a bus stop in Kherson, which Russian troops have been regularly bombarding ever since withdrawing from the city last fall.

Missiles and suicide drones also rained down on Kyiv, Odesa and Kharkiv, where air raid sirens blared through the night.

The attacks have left hundreds of thousands of households without electricity, heat and water.

Ukraine said Thursday’s missile and drone strikes had also knocked out the power supply to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, cutting off the grid and forcing it onto emergency diesel power to prevent a potentially catastrophic meltdown. It was later reconnected to the power grid. 

The facility, which has been under Russian control since the first days of the war, is located near the front line and both sides have traded accusations of shelling around the plant. 

“The specialists at the plant are working quite professionally, the automation has started up,” said Renat Karchaa, aide to the CEO of Russian state nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom. “There is no threat or danger of a nuclear incident.”

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi warned of a potential for disaster. 

“Each time we are rolling a dice. And if we allow this to continue time after time then one day our luck will run out,” Grossi told the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors.

With Post wires