Kyiv, July 2: Russia hammered Kyiv in an 11-hour drone and missile attack overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 20 civilians in the city and injuring scores more in what Moscow said was retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.
Loud explosions shook the Ukrainian capital for hours during the night, with many people sheltering in subway stations after authorities issued air raid warnings. Emergency crews were still digging through the rubble of collapsed and charred apartment buildings in search of victims as dawn broke.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement that the deadly bombardment was in response to Ukraine’s long-range strikes that have caused severe fuel shortages and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine’s increasingly frequent and large-scale attacks — described by Zelenskyy as a 40-day blitz — have especially targeted oil refineries, causing a fuel crisis that has frustrated Russians, more than four years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.
Ukrainian officials say they are trying to force Putin to the negotiating table, but so far Moscow’s response has been to hit back.
Diplomatic efforts to end the war, most recently by the Trump administration, haven’t produced results. Putin thinks that time is on his side, that Western support will peter out and that Ukraine’s resistance will eventually collapse under pressure from strategic bombing, Western analysts say.
The attack killed 20 people in Kyiv, according to Kyiv city administration head Tymur Tkachenko. More than 90 others were injured, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it was a “night of horror” in the capital.
Damage was recorded in 30 locations across the city, mainly residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Some 20 residential buildings were damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Flashes from exploding drones and missiles lit up the night, and loud booms echoed through Kyiv. Tracers from air defense fire streaked through the air as a huge pall of black smoke rose into the sky.
Kyiv resident Serhii Budko said three or four ballistic missiles hit his district of the city. “We were inside the shelter and felt the shelter shaking — the ceiling and floor, everything,” the 24-year-old told The Associated Press.
In Kyiv’s Desnianskyi district, people were trapped inside a damaged nine-story residential building, and in the Darnytskyi district six levels of a nine-story building collapsed.
Russia’s General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov reported the results of the “massive retaliatory strike” to Putin, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
The bombardment was “exclusively against military or military-linked targets,” Peskov said.
Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukraine have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.
Sybiha said in April that domestic production meets up to 75% of Ukraine’s military needs and accounts for up to 95% of long-range strikes against Russia. The location of the factories making those weapons is secret.
Elsewhere, in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region a Russian guided bomb strike killed a 7-year-old girl and wounded four other people, including an 11-year-old girl, all members of the same family, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.
The attack used “high-precision long-range weapons” and drones on “military industry facilities and fuel and energy complexes in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, as well as military airfield infrastructure in four other regions of Ukraine,” the Russian Defence Ministry’s statement said.
It published a list of targets it said the barrage hit, mostly plants manufacturing and assembling Ukrainian drones, missiles and components.
Russia fired 74 missiles, 24 of them ballistic, and 496 drones of various types in the attack, Ukraine’s air force said.
Ukraine’s air defences have improved throughout the war, especially in countering Russian drones. But ballistic missiles are harder to stop, and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly pleaded with partner countries to supply more Patriot missile systems that offer the best protection.
Sybiha urged countries not to delay decisions on supplying air defence systems and missiles.
He rejected any Russian attempts to justify the strikes as retaliation for Ukraine’s long-range attacks, saying Ukraine was exercising its right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter while Russia remained the aggressor.
Sybiha said on X that the death toll may rise as rescue teams continue their work. (AP)
