Russia seems to have marked Vladimir Putin’s birthday with one of the heaviest air raids of the war. Overnight into Wednesday, October 7, Ukraine time, Russian forces sent waves of missiles and drones at Kyiv and 12 regions, and by morning at least 11 people had died and more than 30 had suffered injuries, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. By late morning, police in the Chernihiv region had raised the count in Pryluky alone to nine dead, three of them children, and by midday Ukraine’s interior minister put it at 13, four of them children, with at least 19 civilians dead nationwide, according to the Associated Press, and by 3 p.m. Chernihiv region police counted 16 dead in Pryluky. Reuters describes the raid as one of Russia’s biggest strikes on Ukraine. Putin turned 74 on Wednesday, and Ukrainian officials leaned hard on the date. “Today, on Putin’s birthday, the Russian army ‘gave’ him the ‘gift’ of destroying a residential building in Pryluky,” Zelenskyy wrote, in a translation published by the Ukrainian outlet UNN.

The deadliest single hit came in Pryluky, a city in the northern Chernihiv region. Around 6 a.m., police say, Russian forces fired a series of missiles at the city, striking an apartment block, a children’s and youth creative center, and an enterprise, Ukrinform reports. “One of the strikes hit a residential apartment block directly,” wrote Viacheslav Chaus, head of the Chernihiv regional military administration. Images from the scene showed a large section of the five-story building collapsed, according to the Kyiv Post. By Zelenskyy’s count, five people died there and 26 suffered wounds, five of them children, and rescuers kept digging because more residents may still lie under the rubble. Earlier local tallies ran lower, at two dead and seven injured as of 8:20 a.m., according to Suspilne, as cited by Ukrinform, so the Pryluky figures have climbed through the day. By late morning they climbed again. “As of 11:30, the death toll has risen to nine,” Chernihiv region police said, as quoted by Ukrainska Pravda, adding that rescuers had recovered the bodies of three children from the rubble and that 38 people had suffered injuries, seven of them children. The toll kept rising after that. Interior Minister Ihor Vyhivskyi later said the strike that destroyed the block killed 13 people, including four children, and injured about 50, the Associated Press reports. By 3 p.m., Chernihiv region police raised the count to 16 dead, four of them children, and 55 injured, seven of them children, and said the strike damaged 15 apartment buildings and 16 private homes, Glavnoe in Ukraine reports. Vyhivskyi also said a policewoman suffered wounds in the strike and that her husband, who until recently served with the police on the front lines, and her mother died, according to Ukrinform. Nina Lutsenko, a State Emergency Service spokesperson in the region, said crews pulled three people out alive, one of them a child, Ukrainska Pravda reports.

Kyiv took two waves. Kyiv Independent journalists heard the first explosions around 3:15 a.m. and a second wave about two hours later, after Ukraine’s air force had warned of Russian Tu-95 bombers approaching the border. The outlet’s Tim Zadorozhnyy counted 10 to 12 blasts as missiles fell one after another over the city center. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a fire in the densely populated Darnytskyi district killed two people, and strikes also hit a non-residential area in Obolon and warehouses in Podil, according to Al Jazeera and the Kyiv Independent. Many residents rode out the night in deep metro stations, Reuters reports. On Tuesday, Zelenskyy had warned that intelligence pointed to a large-scale attack. “Please, please, take care of yourself. Please respond to signals of missile danger,” he said, as quoted by the Kyiv Independent.

The damage spread well beyond the capital. Zelenskyy said Russian missiles damaged five apartment buildings in Dnipro and four high-rises in Kremenchuk, where two people died and eight suffered wounds, and a drone hit a high-rise in Zaporizhzhia. Two more people died in Oleksandriia, in the Kirovohrad region. Regional officials also reported an industrial site hit in Dnipro and damage to transport infrastructure in Zaporizhzhia, Reuters reports. Ukraine’s parliamentary human rights commissioner, Dmytro Lubinets, summed up the mood: “Another sleepless night, another act of terror, after which people still have to plan their working day despite everything.”

The counts of what Russia fired differ by source. Zelenskyy spoke of about 70 missiles in total, many of them ballistic, as well as Shahed-type drones, and said Ukraine managed to shoot down only some of them. Ukraine’s air force, as reported by Reuters, listed 130 drones, 48 cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles without a number, and said its units downed 161 targets, with Kyiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kharkiv regions bearing the brunt. The two tallies may count different things, and neither side has published a full breakdown.

Zelenskyy said Russia aimed to hit Ukraine’s energy system before winter. “The Russians wanted to strike painfully and demonstratively,” he wrote on Telegram, according to Reuters. He singled out the weapons Ukraine struggles most to stop: “Russian ballistic missiles remain the greatest challenge,” he said, and he described a daily hunt for more missiles for U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems. Recent weeks have brought relentless strikes on Kyiv’s energy grid, rail and road links, and the bridges over the Dnipro River, Al Jazeera reports.

Europe answered with money. The European Commission said Wednesday that it had paid Ukraine €1.24 billion to buy drones, drone interceptors, drone ammunition, and missiles, part of a loan it had already promised, the Associated Press reports. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen accused Russia of “a deliberate strategy of terror” and added, “Others must step up their support too.” Ukraine kept up its own long-range campaign as well: Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces targeted two oil facilities and a training ground in Russia’s Perm, Samara, and Astrakhan regions, and he posted images of what he called a burning oil tanker near Sochi, which the AP could not independently verify.

Moscow told a different story. Russia’s defense ministry said its forces carried out a “massive strike” on military-industrial facilities in Kyiv and other regions with precision weapons launched from land, sea, and air, plus drones, Reuters reports. It named as targets the sites where the Ukrainian defense company Fire Point makes and stores its Flamingo cruise missiles and its medium- and long-range drones, and it said it also hit port facilities in the Odesa region and vessels serving Ukraine’s armed forces, according to Al Jazeera. The Fire Point claim carries weight because Zelenskyy said last week that Ukraine had fired its first homemade ballistic missile in combat, a Fire Point weapon, and that the firm should have a longer-range FP-9 missile ready this autumn, one the company says can reach Moscow. The desk could not independently check which sites the strikes actually hit.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, used the birthday as a pitch to allies. “On Putin’s birthday, Russian generals brought him his favorite present: war crimes,” he said, as quoted by The Guardian. “I urge all partners to give Putin real presents that will help him finally choose diplomacy over war,” he added, calling for stronger sanctions on Russia’s military industry, including plants that make ballistic missiles and the Rassvet satellite system, and for more air defense and energy aid before winter. He also said Ukraine hopes to put a special tribunal for the crime of aggression into practical operation next year.

The raid lands in a week of escalating long-range attacks in both directions. Days earlier, Ukraine sent hundreds of drones toward the Moscow region, and Russia has hammered Kyiv’s bridges and rail network. With winter approaching and Ukraine pleading for more Patriot interceptors, Wednesday’s strike seems likely to sharpen the argument over air defense in Western capitals, while the Pryluky rescue goes on and the death toll may still rise.