Russia launched one of its deadliest attacks on Kyiv this year early today, killing at least 11 people and injuring 60 others in a massive missile and drone barrage that Ukrainian officials said exposed growing weaknesses in the country’s air-defence network.
Emergency crews worked through the wreckage of two residential high-rise buildings that suffered direct hits, while rescue teams searched for survivors trapped beneath collapsed structures.
According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Russia fired hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight, with Kyiv as the primary target. Officials said all 29 ballistic missiles launched during the attack reached their targets, highlighting what Ukrainian authorities describe as a severe shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles.
The assault came just days after another Russian strike killed 31 people in Kyiv, the deadliest attack on the Ukrainian capital this year, and hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that a large-scale attack was imminent.
Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said Ukraine continues to face a critical deficit of missile interceptors.
“To intercept ballistics, we need the means for interception. Russians are certainly using the fact that there is a serious deficit of interceptor missiles now, in Ukraine and the world,” he said on national television.
Ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara, Zelensky urged Ukraine’s Western allies to strengthen the country’s air-defence capabilities, arguing that existing supplies are insufficient to counter Russian ballistic missile attacks.
“Ukrainian forces are performing effectively against drones and cruise missiles, but not against ballistic missiles,” Zelensky said. “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.”
Russia’s Defence Ministry said the strikes were carried out in response to recent Ukrainian long-range attacks. Moscow claimed it targeted military-industrial facilities in Kyiv, including sites allegedly involved in the production of drones, missiles, armoured vehicles and air-defence equipment, as well as fuel and energy infrastructure.
While having successfully deterred or complicated Russian advances through its tactical use of drone warfare, Kyiv, nevertheless remains heavily dependent on the US’ Patriot systems for protection against ballistic missiles, with shortages becoming increasingly acute as global demand for interceptors rises, all the while Washington itself is beginning to face a domestic shortage, with global and domestic orders far outstripping production capacity.
The latest attack once again struck civilian areas. According to UN estimates, more than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine war now in its fourth year.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, said residential neighbourhoods bore the brunt of the attack.
“These are residential buildings. Places where people slept and lived their ordinary lives,” he said.
Authorities reported that part of a residential building in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district collapsed, while several apartment blocks in the Darnytsia district suffered extensive damage.
Residents described scenes of panic as explosions ripped through the city.
Khrystyna Piatetska, a 20-year-old resident of Darnytskyi district, said a second explosion shattered the windows of her apartment building after an initial strike.
“The lights went out, there was smoke everywhere and the smell of burning filled the air,” she said. “When we were leaving the building, bodies were lying there. Cars started exploding, and we came out from under the rubble straight into the fire.”
Another resident, 61-year-old Halina Ivanivna, said she awoke around 2am to the sound of explosions before parts of her building began collapsing.
“Everything was falling down,” she said, describing smoke-filled hallways, flooding inside the building and frantic evacuation efforts by emergency responders.
The fighting extended beyond Ukraine. In Crimea, officials reported a widespread power outage caused by what authorities described as “external impact”. In Sevastopol, Moscow-appointed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said Ukrainian attacks disrupted electricity supplies before backup systems restored power.
Elsewhere in Russia, authorities in the Yaroslavl region said two people were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack. Governor Mikhail Yavrayev said more than 70 drones were intercepted overnight, with the Russian media outlet Astra reporting that an oil refinery was targeted and caught fire.
Russia’s Defence Ministry claimed its air-defence systems shot down 519 Ukrainian drones during the same period.
