Around 4 a.m. on June 12, 2024, Kyiv Independent reporters in the Ukrainian capital heard explosions. Residents who had been jolted awake by air raid sirens soon had a calmer message to read: the city’s military administration said every target aimed at the capital had been intercepted.
The night was not quiet everywhere, though. Falling debris did its own damage in the surrounding Kyiv region. A blaze hit an industrial site there, and one person suffered leg lacerations. A house, a gas station and a garage were damaged, and a separate blaze started in a warehouse.
What Russia fired
The Air Force put the size of the strike at 30 aerial weapons, according to RBC-Ukraine, which cited the Air Force commander, Mykola Oleshchuk. The mix was four cruise missiles (Kh-101 and Kh-555 types) launched from Tu-95 MS strategic bombers over the Saratov region, one Iskander-M ballistic missile from Crimea, one Kinzhal fired from airspace over the Tambov region, and 24 Shahed drones launched from the Yeysk and Primorsko-Akhtarsk areas of Russia.
Ukraine’s account of the result: 29 of the 30 were shot down. All 24 drones fell, along with the Kinzhal and the four cruise missiles. The one that got through was the Iskander. Kyiv Independent noted that the Air Force gave no word of an interception for it. So the claim that fits the facts is narrower than “everything”: all the missiles heading for Kyiv were stopped, and the national tally missed one.
The defence was layered. Hromadske Radio, relaying the Air Force statement, listed anti-aircraft missile units, mobile fire groups and electronic warfare units. Air defence worked across six regions, Kyiv, Poltava and Kharkiv among them.
Damage elsewhere
Further east, the drones hurt people. Eleven were shot down over Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, where attacks still injured two people, a man aged 39 and a woman aged 40. Governor Serhii Lysak added that the couple’s son, 13, was in shock. In Sumy Oblast a drone hit an energy facility, and Ukrenergo said 14 settlements lost power.
Poland also reacted. Its Operational Command said on X that Polish and allied planes took off to guard the country’s own airspace once word of the Russian missile attacks came in.
The air raid alert was lifted across most of Ukraine at 4:45 a.m. and in the remaining regions about 5:15 a.m. Roughly sixty minutes on, at about 6:15 a.m., alerts came back across the country, as the Air Force warned of missiles that Russian MiG-31 fighter jets might launch.
Sources
- Updated: Russia launches attacks on Ukraine, all missiles targeting Kyiv intercepted
- Ukrainian defense forces shoot down 5 missiles and 24 attack drones overnight
- Russian attack on Ukraine: Air defense downs 5 missiles and 24 drones
