Russian missile and drone strikes killed at least 18 people across Ukraine overnight, including two children, Ukrainian officials said.
Russian missile and drone strikes killed at least 18 people across Ukraine overnight, including two children, as rescuers pulled bodies from the rubble of an apartment building in the central city of Dnipro, Ukrainian officials said Tuesday.
The attack was described as one of Moscow’s largest assaults in recent months. Regional officials said 12 people were killed in Dnipro, including an eight-year-old boy and a woman whose bodies were recovered from the damaged apartment block. Authorities in Kyiv reported six deaths in the capital.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said civilian infrastructure and energy facilities had been hit across the country and that more than 100 people were injured. He said Russia launched 656 strike drones and 73 missiles of several types, including ballistic, cruise and anti-ship missiles.
Zelensky said the main attack was aimed at Kyiv, where residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure were damaged. In Dnipro, he said on X that the strike had “essentially demolished” part of the apartment building.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said fires broke out near a petrol station, a construction site, apartment blocks and two houses. Blackouts were also reported in the city, where residents had been urged to stay in shelters as ballistic missile warnings were issued.
Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s north-east, also reported strikes on energy facilities and civilian infrastructure, with 10 people injured, including a child. Zelensky said an industrial facility was attacked farther south in Zaporizhzhia as regions across the country came under fire.
Russia’s defence ministry said the strikes were a response to earlier Ukrainian attacks and claimed the “strike objectives” had been achieved. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was carrying out the “systematic strikes” it had pledged after accusing Kyiv of a deadly attack on a student dormitory in an occupied part of eastern Ukraine in late May. Kyiv said it had struck a Russian military unit.
Zelensky renewed his call for air-defence support, saying Ukraine urgently needed help from the United States in supplying missiles for Patriot systems. Patriot interceptors have been in short supply, and Kyiv’s European allies have been buying them from the United States before transferring them to Ukraine.
The overnight assault followed several recent waves of Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv since a brief ceasefire expired in early May. Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Comments (0)