Russia launched one of its biggest aerial assaults on Ukraine overnight. A spokesman says the country has no capability to counter the weapons used.

When Russia launched a total of 81 missiles at major cities across Ukraine on Thursday morning, it included six Kinzhal ballistic missiles that eluded Kyiv’s air defenses, the Ukrainian military said.

“The attack is really large-scale and for the first time using such different types of missiles. We see that this time as many as six Kinzhal were used. This is an attack like I don’t remember seeing before,” Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for the Air Force Command of Ukraine, said on Ukrainian television Thursday.

Russia used the nuclear-capable Kinzhal missile, which it has described as a hypersonic weapon, on a few occasions in the first weeks of its invasion last year. But the powerful weapon has rarely been seen over the country’s skies. Its first known use was last March, and then in May, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The use of such a wide and unpredictable array of weaponry seemingly marks a shift in the Kremlin’s strategy.

About the Kinzhal: It is an air-launched variant of the Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) which has also, more frequently, been used in Ukraine, and was unveiled by Putin in 2018 as a cornerstone of a modernized Russian arsenal.

Like virtually all missiles it is hypersonic, which means they travel at least five times the speed of sound, but it is also particularly difficult to detect because it can be launched from MiG-31 fighter jets, giving it a longer range and the ability to attack from multiple directions.

CNN’s Svitlana Vlasova and Radina Gigova contributed reporting.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said Thursday the barrage of missile strikes launched on Ukraine overnight was retaliation for what the ministry called “terrorist actions” organized by Kyiv in Russia’s Bryansk region last week.

“High-precision long-range air, sea and land-based weapons, including the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system, hit key elements of Ukraine’s military infrastructure, military-industrial complex enterprises, as well as energy facilities that serve them,” the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed in a statement.

It claimed that the target was reached and “all assigned objects have been hit.”

Ukrainian authorities said Russia fired 81 missiles into multiple Ukrainian regions, including the nation’s capital overnight into Thursday. At least 11 people were killed across Ukraine in the strikes, according to regional authorities. 

Here’s what happened in Bryansk: Russian security officials claimed a small Ukrainian armed group had crossed the Russian border last week into the southern Bryansk region. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the agency was carrying out operations following “armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border.” Russian President Vladimir Putin described the incident as a “terrorist attack.” A local official said two civilians were killed.

An adviser in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, Mykhailo Podolyak, said the alleged raid was either a Russian provocation or the work of local partisans taking a stand against the Kremlin, denying any Ukrainian involvement.

CNN cannot independently verify the Russian claims, and local media have not carried any images of the supposed incidents, any type of confrontation or an alleged raid reported by Russian authorities.

CNN’s Olga Voitovych, Vasco Cotovio, Nathan Hodge and Rob Picheta contributed to this post.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to visit Ukraine during an exclusive interview with CNN.

“Mr. McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

But the California Republican told CNN on Tuesday he had no plans to visit.

“Let’s be very clear about what I said: no blank checks, OK? So, from that perspective, I don’t have to go to Ukraine to understand where there’s a blank check or not,” McCarthy told CNN. “I will continue to get my briefings and others, but I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv to see it.”

Almost every Western leader who matters, and many who don’t, have now made the daring trip to visit Zelensky, a hero of democracy, in Kyiv.

Yet McCarthy, who has a reputation for loving a photo-op with famous people, rebuffed the invitation to visit the Ukrainian leader.

His bridging of two adamant strands of opinion in the House GOP on Ukraine is just about holding. Moderate Republicans who helped the GOP win the majority last November are just as important to the party’s hopes of retaining control of the chamber next year as pro-Trump extremists. But their priorities risk being constantly compromised by the speaker’s repeated plays to Trump’s base and the ex-president’s most devoted followers in the House.

Making the trip is effectively a political impossibility for McCarthy as Trump accused Biden of caring more about Ukraine’s borders than America’s.

McCarthy hasn’t fully adopted demands of his most radical subordinates, like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, for audits or an end to Ukraine aid. His line about a blank check could be interpreted as a holding position between his extremist colleagues and hawkish internationalist Republicans who want to do more.

But with Russia only escalating its assault and the GOP presidential primary likely to drag the party toward the anti-aid faction, it’s a position that may crumble before much longer.

At least 11 people have been killed by a wave of Russian missile strikes across Ukraine overnight Thursday, sparking calls for more weapons shipments and sanctions against Russia.

Elsewhere, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is operating in emergency mode after damage caused by Russian shelling disconnected it from the power grid.

Here are the latest headlines:

Russia’s overnight strikes have killed at least 11 people and left 22 injured, according to local officials. 

As the assault continued into the early hours of Thursday morning, 81 missiles were fired into multiple Ukrainian regions including the nation’s capital, Kyiv, injuring three.

In the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv, there were further strikes, as three residential buildings were destroyed. Reports indicate at least five have been killed as rescuers continue to search for additional victims. 

There were more fatalities in the Kherson region where at least three people died and three others were wounded after shelling hit residential areas and apartment buildings.

In the Kharkiv district a missile injured two elderly women, while the rest of the region is currently without power, regional authorities have said. 

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, one person was killed and two were injured, according to preliminary information.

Other regions hit by Russian strikes include Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhya, Kirovohrad and Vinnytsia.

Russian shells also hit a hospital and at least 9 residential buildings in Donetsk, killing two civilians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attacks in a Facebook message on Thursday claiming Russia “won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done.”

Air raid alarms are in place Thursday for the entire territory of Ukraine, the country’s emergency air alarms map shows. 

The move comes after at least 11 people were killed and more than 20 injured in missile strikes across Ukraine overnight Thursday.

Russia targeted critical infrastructure with more than 80 missiles.

The overnight strikes constitute “an attack like I don’t remember seeing before,” said a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force on Thursday.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called on Western allies to supply more weapons to Ukraine and impose more sanctions on Russia, following overnight Russian attacks that killed at least 11 people and over 20 injured across the country.

“Residential buildings have been hit. There are casualties. We need more weapons and more sanctions to stop the aggressor,” he said in a series of Twitter posts.

Noting that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was also impacted by the strikes — the sixth time since Russia launched its invasion — Shmyhal urged the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to “take decisive action” to stop Russia’s “nuclear terrorism.”

Ukraine is becoming a “battle lab” for testing Iranian weapons outside of the Middle East, a senior US defense official said Thursday.

This comes ahead of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s visit to Israel where Iranian-Russian military cooperation will be on the agenda.

The official added that Russia is willing to transfer advanced technology to Iran in order to receive Iranian “lethal aid.”  

A media report that a “pro-Ukrainian” group may have been behind last year’s attack on the Nord Stream gas pipeline is “hard to believe,” the Kremlin said Thursday.

“As for some pro-Ukrainian ‘doctor evil’ who organized this, it’s hard to believe,” Russian spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a daily call.

“It was too difficult a task that only a well-trained special state service could handle. There aren’t many of them in our world,” he said.

“We continue to demand a prompt and transparent investigation,” Peskov said.

Moscow will demand to be admitted to the investigation, he added, calling the theory that Russia was involved in the explosions “completely unfounded and unsubstantiated.”

“Now, no matter what happens, Russia is the first to be blamed. Of course, this hoax does not stand up to scrutiny. It is completely unfounded and unsubstantiated, absurd in nature,” he said.

What Ukraine is saying: Ukraine has denied any involvement in the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines following a media report citing new intelligence that a “pro-Ukrainian group” may have been behind the attack.

Mystery has surrounded who might be responsible for the brazen sabotage last September which damaged two pipes transporting Russian gas into the European Union and targeted a crucial source of revenue for Moscow.

Both pipelines were closed at the time of the attack, which came months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.