KYIV, Ukraine: Russia on Sunday pummelled Ukraine with a “massive” aerial barrage of missiles and drones, killing at least nine people across the country in the largest attack in months that Kyiv branded “hellish”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow launched 120 missiles and almost 100 drones, targeting the capital as well as southern, central and far-western corners of the country.

Civilians were killed in the Mykolaiv, Lviv, Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk and Odesa regions in what officials in Kyiv called it one of the biggest barrages of the almost three-year long Russian invasion.

The devastation comes at a time when Moscow has been steadily advancing in Ukraine´s east and with the imminent return of Donald Trump to the White House raising fears over the future of US support for Kyiv.

“A hellish night,” the spokesman for Ukraine´s airforce Yuriy Ignat said on social media, adding that Kyiv downed “144 targets”.

The giant attack followed two days after German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Russian leader Vladimir Putin for the first time in almost two years, calling on the Kremlin chief to end Moscow´s devastating offensive.

Kyiv had slammed Scholz for reaching out to Putin and on Sunday said the attack was the Kremlin´s real answer.

“This is war criminal Putin´s true response to all those who called and visited him recently,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said after the attack.