A wave of Russian missiles and drones struck across Ukraine on Monday, killing at least 21 people and heavily damaging apartment blocks and other buildings, in an attack that underscored widening gaps in Ukraine's air defences on the eve of a Nato summit in Turkey.
Casualties and damage in Kyiv and surrounding region
Fifteen people were killed in Kyiv, Russia's main target, and 56 others were injured, according to Tymur Tkachenko, the city's administrative head. Another six people were killed in the wider Kyiv region and 21 were injured, said Mykola Kalashnyk, head of the regional administration, and other emergency officials. At least 60 people were wounded across the country, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The onslaught began shortly after 1am and lasted for hours, striking at least 15 multi-storey residential buildings. In the historic Podilskyi district, four residential buildings were hit and a nine-storey block was largely destroyed from the fifth floor up, leaving survivors trapped. Rescuers used a ladder truck to reach them as firefighters battled lingering flames.
Air defence gaps exposed
All of the ballistic missiles launched by Russia struck their targets, underscoring Kyiv's need for more Patriot interceptor missiles – a point Zelenskyy is expected to reiterate at the Nato summit starting Tuesday. Zelenskyy noted that while Ukrainian forces had achieved success countering Russian drones and cruise missiles, they had not been able to shoot down the ballistic missiles because of a shortage of Patriot interceptors.
He urged the US and European allies to leave the Nato summit in Ankara with “strong decisions” on strengthening Ukraine's air defences, adding that Patriot missiles sitting in allied stockpiles only encouraged “Russia to keep 'defeating' residential buildings.”
Details of the attack
Ukraine's air force said Russia launched a combined attack involving ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, hypersonic Zircon anti-ship missiles, and 351 attack and decoy drones overnight. Thirty-seven cruise missiles and 326 attack drones were shot down, but 23 ballistic missiles, six Zircon missiles, and 18 drones evaded Ukrainian air defences and struck 34 locations across the country. The attack also included faster flying drones equipped with jets, which air defence teams have found more difficult to counter.
The Russian defence ministry confirmed it used long-range weapons and drones to carry out a “massive” attack on Kyiv and other locations, claiming it hit military and energy facilities in Kyiv and surrounding areas, as well as military airfields in several other regions.
Political context and summit
The latest large-scale Russian attack came after the Kremlin confirmed on Monday that Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had agreed in a weekend call to talk again “in the near future.” Trump is planning to meet Zelenskyy on Wednesday in Turkey during the two-day Nato summit, a senior US official said on Sunday, with the aim of making a renewed push to end the war in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy called for “strong decisions” from the summit. “As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies' stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep 'vanquishing' residential buildings. The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror,” he said in a statement.
Continuing fighting and other developments
In Russian-annexed Crimea, Governor Mikhail Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram: “Following an enemy attack on energy infrastructure near Sevastopol, our city was temporarily left without electricity.” Ukraine has increasingly targeted energy facilities inside Russia and Moscow-controlled territory to weaken the Kremlin's war effort.
Zelenskyy said on Sunday that troops were continuing to fight for the strategic eastern town of Kostyantynivka, a gateway to important Ukrainian positions in the Donetsk region. On Friday, Moscow said it had taken the outpost, but Kyiv dismissed the announcement as a “lie.”
