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Reuters

Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine’s capital Kyiv in the early hours on Thursday, killing at least 21 people, wounding scores more and damaging around 130 buildings in one of the biggest attacks of the war.
Multiple explosions shook buildings and reverberated across the capital throughout the night as thousands of residents rushed to bomb shelters and underground metro stations.
The attack caused the widest destruction in Kyiv so far this year, and was the deadliest since at least May when 24 people were killed in a strike that brought down a residential block.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, ‌who cut short a visit to Ireland to rush home, said the “main strike was directed at Kyiv”. “Air defence supplies for Ukraine are an absolute and critical priority,” he said, urging Ukraine’s allies to maintain contributions to a fund to buy US weapons, including Patriot air defence missiles for Ukraine.
“This night, Russia once again carried out a cynical, large-scale attack on Ukraine,” Prime Minister Yulia ‌Svyrydenko said on the Telegram app. “The enemy launched dozens of ballistic missiles. Kyiv was hit the hardest.”
Russia launched 74 missiles and 496 drones during the attack, the Ukrainian air force said. Air defence units shot down most of those but 25 ballistic missiles and 12 drones struck 33 locations.
The Russian defence ministry, in a Telegram post, said its “massive attack” using long-range, high-precision air-, land-, sea-launched weapons and drones hit military and energy facilities, as well as airports in Kyiv and other locations.


Moscow said the attacks ⁠were retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian civil infrastructure. Russia brought down 327 drones overnight, the defence ministry said.
The Kremlin said Russian military commanders briefed President Vladimir Putin about the Russian attacks, adding that Moscow would continue to increase pressure on Ukraine to achieve its war aims.
For its part, the Ukrainian General ⁠Staff said it had hit an oil refinery in the town of Kstovo in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region overnight. Nizhny Novgorod Governor Gleb Nikitin said one person was killed and four people wounded in a drone strike ‌that damaged an industrial facility.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha reiterated Kyiv’s urgent plea for Ukraine’s allies to supply more air defences, saying that the capital had “suffered a night of horror”.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced a day of mourning in Kyiv for Friday. He said that damage was recorded across the entire ‌city of about 3 million people, with some buildings smashed.
Katarina Mathernova, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, said that “Russia unleashed hell on Kyiv” overnight, and had ⁠struck accommodation used by diplomatic personnel. Diplomats were unharmed, but their ⁠belongings were damaged in the fire that engulfed the building, she said.
Emergency services were sifting through the rubble of what used to be a nine-storey building on the left bank of the Dnipro River ⁠that bisects the city as the sun rose ⁠and fires flared up around it. City officials said that about 90 people, including children, paramedics and drivers at an ambulance station, were wounded and that some people were still trapped inside damaged residential buildings.
“Our house is on fire. Oleg was pulling our neighbour out of the burning house, while I was phoning all the emergency services during the explosions,” ‌Iryna ‌Plekhova, a Kyiv resident, said on social media, posting a picture of a half-destroyed residential building with no windows.
“We do not have an apartment any more.”
The National Institute of Biochemistry was among many buildings damaged. Its state-of-the-art biochemistry laboratory and other ‌offices were gutted during the attack.
“This is a catastrophe for medical and biological science of Ukraine,” biologist Yurii Danylovych said, adding that the lab housed rare equipment.

Ukraine’s neighbour Poland, a Nato and European Union member, briefly scrambled fighter jets as a preventive measure. Finland also briefly issued a temporary aviation restriction zone in the eastern Gulf of Finland before lifting it later, ⁠its defence forces said on social media.
After years in which Ukraine bore the brunt of relentless long-range attacks from Russia, Kyiv has intensified its own strikes deeper into Russian territory in recent months, ⁠mainly hitting energy targets. That has triggered a fuel crisis in Russia, forcing the world’s third-biggest oil producer to import petrol from as far away as India.
Russia has responded with a stepped-up air campaign against Ukrainian cities, last month hitting a 1,000-year-old Kyiv cathedral foundational to the Orthodox faith in both countries.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, said only sustained military support for Ukraine and increased ‌pressure on Moscow could help stop Russian attacks.
“Today, I ‌will propose to sanction more entities supporting Russia’s military-industrial complex in response to the strikes,” she said in a social media post. “The more Moscow attacks civilians, the more sanctions must be imposed.”

Zelensky has proposed talks with Putin to end the more than four-year-old war, which the Kremlin leader has rejected.
Russia has killed thousands of Ukrainian civilians in strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Moscow denies intentionally attacking civilians but says attacks on what it describes as civil infrastructure are legitimate because they hurt Ukraine’s ability to wage war. Kyiv has also launched attacks on Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine on a far smaller scale.
A new report by the US think tank Centre for Strategic and International Studies said Russia has suffered an estimated 1.4 million military casualties – including troops killed, wounded or missing, compared with about 600,000 on the Ukrainian side.
CSIS estimated that between 400,000 and 450,000 Russian troops have been killed, compared with 125,000 to 150,000 Ukrainian military deaths. In January, the think tank had estimated Russian fatalities at about 325,000.
Additional reporting by dpa


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Ukraine war

‘Night of horror’: Russian missile and drone barrage kills 21 in Ukraine capital

A crater from overnight Russian missile and drone strikes in Kyiv. Photo: Reuters

An explosion lights up the sky over Kyiv. Photo: Reuters

A burning building in Kyiv. Photo: AP

Smoke rises over Kyiv. Photo: AP

 Extensive damage to a residential block, with a chunk of the building missing. Photo: AFP

Residents walk past burned out cars. Photo: Reuters

A destroyed house in Kyiv. Photo: Reuters

Ukraine drones ignite Russian refinery as Putin acknowledges fuel shortages

A satellite image shows smoke rising from an oil storage fire at Russia’s Kavkaz Port on June 21. Kyiv has stepped up its drone campaign inside Russia. Photo: Vantor via Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on domestic fuel supplies. Photo: Sputnik via AP

Cars line up at a petrol station in Moscow. Photo: EPA

Russia reports one of biggest Ukrainian drone attacks

A woman and her dog walk in a park as smoke billows in the background following a reported Ukrainian drone attack in Moscow on June 18. Photo: EPA

An explosion at a Moscow oil refinery after a Ukrainian drone attack earlier this month. Photo: Social media via Reuters

A woman hugs her cat after finding it in a damaged residential building on Saturday following a Russian missile attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo: AP

Young people in the Donetsk region in Russia-controlled Ukraine stand in front of a damaged apartment building on Wednesday after an attack by Ukrainian drones. Photo: AFP

Russian strikes on Ukraine kill at least 11, injure 40, as heatwave attacks too

Police officers stand near the body of a resident killed during a Russian air strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Monday. Photo: Reuters

People cool themselves with water from a sprayer set up on a pavement in Lviv, Ukraine, on Monday. Some people in the nation were left without power after the latest Russian strikes, while others turned on air conditioners. Photo: EPA

A minibus was hit by a Russian drone strike on Monday, killing three people. Photo: Reuters

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin meets the country’s human rights commissioner Yana Lantratova at the Kremlin in Moscow on Monday. Photo: via TNS

Ukraine hits Moscow oil refinery in major drone attack on Russian capital

Thick plumes of smoke and flames rise from an oil refinery in Moscow on Thursday. Photo: Social media via Reuters

People walk in a park as black smoke rises from the area of Moscow Oil Refinery on Thursday. Photo: AFP

Thick black clouds of smoke rise over the outskirts of Moscow. Photo: AFP

A residential building in Moscow hit by a drone. Photo: Social media via Reuters

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the G7 summit. Photo: Ukrainian Presidential Press Service via EPA

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Kyiv declares a day of mourning after massive bombardment, which Moscow says is retaliation for strikes on civil infrastructure


Kyiv declares a day of mourning after massive bombardment, which Moscow says is retaliation for strikes on civil infrastructure.


‘Night of horror’: Russian missile and drone barrage kills 21 in Ukraine capital

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Kyiv declares a day of mourning after massive bombardment, which Moscow says is retaliation for strikes on civil infrastructure

Kyiv declares a day of mourning after massive bombardment, which Moscow says is retaliation for strikes on civil infrastructure