Russia carried out one of its largest-ever ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, launching a five-hour raid that left at least one person dead and seven injured, with fires and damage across the city. Ukrainian officials said the capital was hit with about 40 Iskander-M and hypersonic Zircon missiles.
Night of Terror in Kyiv
Residents heard an air raid siren at 1:30 a.m., followed by air defenses and then a series of booms and explosions. Houses in Kyiv's historic center shook, and car alarms blared as dozens of missiles arrived in less than an hour. A second air raid siren sounded at 6:30 a.m., with more impacts reported.
A three-story building caught fire in the central Shevchenkivsky district. Rescuers dug out several people trapped inside and recovered a body. Four other areas were hit, with fires reported at office and residential buildings and a dormitory. Residents sheltering inside Lukyanivska metro station posted footage after the ceiling in the ground-floor vestibule collapsed due to a massive blast wave. The station is temporarily closed.
Casualties and Response
“According to preliminary information, one person was, sadly, killed as a result of the attack,” the city military administration said on Telegram. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said seven people were wounded. Kyiv’s military said it had shot down 18 missiles in Sunday’s attack, which was aimed primarily at the Ukrainian capital. It added that 108 out of 125 drones had also been downed.
“The missiles just kept coming one after another, the explosions were powerful, it was horrible,” 47-year-old Kyiv resident Ganna Zagorodnia told the AFP news agency. “I thought that life was just about to end.”
Mounting Pressure on Air Defenses
Russia has been firing drones and missiles at Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities almost daily since its full-scale 2022 invasion. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last week that the US and Ukraine had reached a political agreement on licenses to make the prized Patriot interceptors, adding that he hoped production could begin by the end of the year. Ukraine’s own stocks of interceptors appear to have dwindled.
“Protection against ballistic missiles is our constant and top priority right now,” Zelenskyy said on X on Sunday. “Interceptors are needed every day.”
Protests and Further Attacks
The attacks come amid large anti-government protests in Kyiv after Zelenskyy’s decision to sack the country’s popular defense minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. Demonstrators want Fedorov reinstated and the Soviet-style commander-in-chief, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, sacked instead. At one location in western Kyiv, emergency workers picked through smoldering debris and doused bombed-out apartments.
A resident who identified himself as Vlad told Reuters he had been inside his apartment when a blast tore off his balcony door, which smashed him in the head. “My grandmother lives with me, and she can’t walk. How could I run away and leave her behind?” he said.
Rescue workers pulled four people from a burning private home in the Sviatoshynskyi district, while in the Shevchenkivskyi district they rescued residents from a burning three-story building. A fire in a non-residential building was also contained. One person was later found dead. Firefighters also responded to blazes in the Solomyanskyi, Desnianskyi and Dnipro districts.
Strikes on Russia
There have also been attacks on Russia. On Saturday, Ukraine sent attack drones to destroy e-commerce warehouses in the Moscow and Tambov regions, killing eight people and causing major fires. Earlier on Saturday, Russian strikes killed five people and wounded almost 20 in several regions. “In response to Russian strikes on our civilian infrastructure and on our cities and communities, two major logistics facilities were hit – in the Moscow and Tambov regions,” Zelenskyy said. He alleged the centers were used “to supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment.”
According to the United Nations, June was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since April 2022, with at least 293 people killed. Talks on ending Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II remain frozen, while fighting at the front is effectively at a standstill.
