The Swedish company SKF confirmed three of its employees died in the attack which Russia said damaged “Ukraine's military-industrial complex.”

An overnight Russian missile strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lutsk hit a Swedish ball bearing factory, the facility’s owners have confirmed.

In a statement released on Tuesday afternoon, Sweden’s SKF company said three of its employees died in the attack.

“We can confirm that there was an attack last night on the city of Lutsk in Ukraine, where we have a factory that was hit in the attack. 

“We are very sad to also be able to confirm that three of our employees died in this attack,” Carl Bjernstam, an SKF spokesman, told AFP in a statement.

The statement came around the same time Russia’s defense ministry said it had struck military-purpose industrial facilities in several sites across Ukraine overnight.

“Ukraine's military-industrial complex suffered significant damage,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that it had carried out long-range precision strikes on “key” facilities.

Ball bearings – small metal spheres usually made of high carbon chromium steel – are used in the manufacture of practically anything with moving parts.

In the military sphere, this makes them crucial for almost all equipment from tanks, to planes to guidance systems.

The overnight strikes also damaged a sports complex in Dnipro, central Ukraine, and a children's playground in Lviv, western Ukraine. 

The Ukrainian air force said it destroyed 16 out of the 28 cruise missiles launched by Russia overnight.