Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities overnight, killing at least 18 civilians and wounding more than 100, authorities said on Tuesday.
The damage trapped some people under the rubble of the apartments. Emergency workers digging through rubble have recovered the body of a three-year-old child and the bodies of a mother and her 8-year-old son in the center of the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, officials said.
The attack started at night and the explosions were heard throughout the cities. Officials said 12 people died in Dnipro and six in Kyiv.
Residents of Kyiv have been on edge for days after Russia warned of a major airstrike and warned foreign diplomats to evacuate the Ukrainian capital. No one seemed to answer the call.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for more support from the US and Europe, describing the massive overnight attack as “a clear statement from Russia: If Ukraine is not protected from ballistic missiles and other missile attacks, those strikes will continue.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has stepped up Moscow’s campaign against Ukraine, as Russian forces recently launched the powerful Oreshnik ballistic missile for only the third time in the four-year war.
Russia’s strategy seeks to take advantage of Ukraine’s shortage of US-made Patriot air defense missiles, whose foreign stocks have been depleted by the Iran war. That has left civilians particularly vulnerable to Russian missile launches, as air defenses stop most attack drones.
At least 64 people were injured in the capital, emergency services said. Kyiv resident Iryna Salikova, 37, spent the night sleeping in a bathtub to protect herself and her three-year-old daughter, as explosions erupted across the city.
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“Our window was broken. A stone flew into the children’s room,” said Salikova, although they were not injured. “We thank God that we are alive, today we are alive, today we are lucky.”
Russia launched 73 missiles and 656 aircraft across Ukraine, according to the country’s military, with key targets including Kyiv, the central city of Dnipro, and the eastern cities of Poltava, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian air defense forces destroyed or suppressed 40 missiles and 602 drones.
Putin wants to change the narrative
Putin is determined to bring good news to the conflict that began with an attack on his Russian neighbor in February 2022 and has not gone according to plan.
Western officials and analysts say Ukraine’s drones are pushing Russian troops forward, choking Russian supply lines to areas under attack in Ukraine and disrupting oil facilities inside Russia that provide vital cash to Moscow. That made the war, which Moscow refers to as a “special military operation,” more visible to Russians and increased pressure on Putin.
US-led peace efforts have stalled as the sides have not made progress on a major rift and after the Gulf and Middle East have caught Washington’s attention. Zelenskyy accepted the unconditional ceasefire demanded by US President Donald Trump but Putin refused.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the military launched a “major” strike with long-range direct weapons on military and industrial sites in Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Khmelnytsk and Sumy regions.
Putin has signaled that Russia will not stop its attacks. He said on Tuesday that a May 22 Ukrainian airstrike on a college dormitory in Starrobilsk in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region that killed 21 had given the war a “completely new dimension.”
Ukraine said it struck a Russian aviation training center in Starobilsk.
A man was thrown out of a Kyiv apartment in an explosion
The strikes of 30 missiles, three cruise missiles and 33 drones were recorded in at least 38 locations across Ukraine, according to regional authorities. Debris from the destroyed drones fell in 15 places, the air force said.
At least four people were killed in Kyiv and 63 injured, including three children, Ukrainian emergency services said. Residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure were damaged in eight districts of Kyiv.
Olena Dniprovska, 65, and her husband Yevhen, 64, were injured in their apartment in Kyiv’s Podilskii district during the attack.
“I went out to the corridor with the phone, and before I could understand what happened, everything fell on my head, the glass, and the door blew,” said Dniprovska, with dried blood on her face and a bandage on her chin. “I ran out to the door and started calling my husband from inside the house, but he was also hit by the blast wave.”
“Now I have no place to live, the apartment has been destroyed, it has no doors, no windows, no balcony. You can leave the room and go out into the street,” he said.
In Kharkiv, at least 14 people were injured and houses, garages and cars were damaged. People were trapped under the rubble of a four-story building.
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