At least 11 people were dead in Kyiv by Monday morning after Russian missiles and drones slammed into the city overnight. Another 46 were wounded, Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram, and rescue crews were still pulling residents out of shattered buildings.
Ukraine’s air force put the size of the raid at 68 missiles and 351 drones. Of the missiles, 23 were ballistic and six were classed as super or hypersonic. Air defences downed or neutralised 37 missiles and 326 drones. Not one ballistic or super and hypersonic missile was stopped, according to the air force data.
Kyiv has said again and again that it is short of Patriot interceptors, the only dependable answer to ballistic missiles.
Apartment blocks hit across the city
Emergency services said at least 15 residential buildings were damaged or destroyed. One nine-storey block in the historic Podilskyi district was largely wrecked from the fifth level upward. Four residential buildings were struck in Podilskyi alone. The General Prosecutor’s office named that district and the eastern Darnytskyi district as the centre of the strikes, and said two other districts also took damage.
Reuters television footage from Podilskyi showed rescuers digging through rubble while smoke rose from an apartment block with a gaping hole in its top floors. Ladder trucks carried emergency workers to the upper storeys. Firefighters were still fighting flames.
Alyona, 22, watched from a nearby playground, waiting for word on her 19-year-old friend Vika, who was missing. “We’re sitting here and waiting until they retrieve them … She’s so kind, only 19 years old. She’s such a kind girl,” she told Reuters, holding back tears.
Beyond the capital
One more person died and 15 were hurt in the surrounding Kyiv region, local officials said. The Black Sea port of Odesa also came under attack, with at least one person injured. Poland, a NATO and EU member, briefly scrambled fighter jets as a precaution.
Russia’s defence ministry called the operation a “massive” attack with long-range, high-precision weapons and drones, launched from the air, land and sea. It said military and energy facilities were hit in Kyiv and the surrounding region, along with military airfields in several other Ukrainian regions.
The assault came just days after a Russian strike on the capital early on Thursday killed 31 people, the deadliest on the city this year. It also landed ahead of a NATO summit in Turkey this week, where U.S. President Donald Trump is due to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and press again for an end to the war.
Ukraine hit back with its own drones. Russian authorities said they damaged the Baltic Sea ports of Vysotsk and Ust-Luga, a major oil export outlet, and that Ukrainian attacks caused a blackout in Sevastopol, home of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
