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Russia has launched hundreds of drones as well as several ballistic and cruise missiles on four Ukrainian cities, killing at least 14 people in Kyiv in the latest indication that Moscow is intensifying its long-range strike campaign.
The death toll in the Ukrainian capital is the worst since July 2024. The cities of Odesa, Chernihiv as well as Zaporizhzhia were also targeted overnight, with 17 people injured in Odesa.
The first drones were reported over Ukraine at around 9pm with Ukrainian air defence heard firing around and over Kyiv until the early hours of the morning.
“This is how Russia fights, killing civilians in ordinary homes, deliberately. This is how autocracies fight,” said Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, on a message on Telegram, showing footage reportedly from the attack of a drone exploding against a residential building.
Some 175 drones, at least 14 cruise missiles and two ballistic missiles targeted Kyiv overnight, according to the head of the city’s civilian-military administration Tymur Tkachenko. At least 99 people were injured.
One missile destroyed part of a high-rise apartment building in the city’s Solomyanskiy district when it went through nine floors and exploded near the basement, interior minister Ihor Klymenko said.
Rescue units have been deployed to 27 locations across Kyiv, according to city officials.
Zelenskyy said Russia used more than 440 drones and 32 missiles nationwide. “[Russia’s President Vladimir] Putin wants the war to go on,” said Zelenskyy, who was due to attend the G7 summit in Canada on Tuesday.
Russia has in recent weeks intensified the pace of its attacks, involving a mix of strike and decoy drones launched in waves as well as ballistic and cruise missiles to overwhelm Ukraine’s weakened air defences.
An overnight aerial barrage targeting several Ukrainian cities on June 8 involved a record-breaking 479 drones, with Russia now regularly using hundreds of drones at a time.
Ukrainian anti-air defence units teams, attempting to shoot down Russian drones from truck-mounted machine guns, have reportedly struggled to deal with more complex drones now flying at higher altitudes.