// BBC WORLD NEWS — MONDO
Zelensky condemns 'vile' large-scale Russian attacks that killed 15
At least 15 people have died in overnight strikes across central and eastern Ukraine, in what Volodymyr Zelensky has described as one of Russia's "most vile" attacks.
Ukraine's president said a residential building in Pryluky in the Chernihiv region was destroyed as a "birthday 'gift' to Putin", who turns 74 on Wednesday. Strikes also hit Kyiv, Dnipro, Kremenchuk, Zaporizhzhia and Oleksandriya.
Zelensky said Ukraine had struck targets in attacks on Russia's Perm, Samara and Astrakhan regions in the past 24 hours, adding there was "also a response in the Black Sea", without providing further details.
"The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively," Zelensky said, adding that 70 missiles were fired in total.
In the social media post on Wednesday morning, Zelensky said five people had been killed and 26, including five children, injured in a strike on a five-storey apartment building in Pryluky.
He added that people could still be trapped in the rubble.
Chernihiv Oblast police later reported that the death toll had risen to nine after the bodies of three children were recovered, with emergency workers continuing a search operation.
Emergency workers were continuing to search for residents under the rubble of the apartment building in Pryluky on Wednesday morning
Two people were also killed and eight injured after Russian missile strikes damaged five apartment buildings in Dnipro and four high-rise buildings in Kremenchuk, said Zelensky.
Two people were also killed in the capital, Kyiv, and two others in Oleksandriya, he added.