Major Russian missile, drone attack on Ukraine kills at least 13, topples apartment building, officials say
A barrage of Russian missile and drone strikes killed at least 13 civilians and wounded dozens more people across Ukraine, authorities said Tuesday, just days after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow was preparing a “massive new strike.”
Russia has bombarded Ukraine almost daily since launching an offensive in 2022, often provoking retaliation from Kyiv, as talks to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II remain stalled.
Russia launched at least 656 drones and 73 missiles at Ukraine Monday night and into Tuesday morning, Ukraine’s air force said. Forty of the missiles and 602 drones were downed or neutralized but 38 sites were hit, with Kyiv the main target, the air force said.
CBS News’ Aidan Stretch said there were new strikes taking place in Kyiv Tuesday morning and drones heard overhead, sending residents of the capital scrabbling back into underground bomb shelters.
For its part, Russia’s military said it carried out a “massive strike” on targets in Ukraine with hypersonic missiles among the munitions. Moscow claimed it targeted Ukraine’s military-industrial complex, but residential buildings in several locations were impacted.
At least nine people were killed in an attack on the southern industrial city of Dnipro, including one child, when a four-story apartment building collapsed, Zelenskyy said. The president said several people were still unaccounted for under the rubble.
Stringer/REUTERS
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people were killed and at least 58, including two children, were wounded in the “mass enemy attack” on the capital.
“We couldn’t understand what was happening — some kind of apocalypse?” Reuters quoted Olha Mudra as saying at the site of one strike. She had her six-year-old daughter with her. “Everything was covered (with debris), everything in smoke, you could see nothing,” she said in front of a destroyed apartment building and damaged cars.
The attack on Kyiv cut electricity to 140,000 residents, power company DTEK told Reuters, but utility workers restored power to 110,000 residents, DTEK said.
Eugene KOTENKO/AFP/Getty
Deadly strikes, involving both missiles and drones, were also reported elsewhere.
Ten people, including a child, were wounded in the city of Kharkiv, according to the mayor, Igor Terekhov.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone strike killed one person in Russia’s Kursk region, near the Ukrainian border, regional governor Alexander Khinshtein said. Another drone sparked a fire at an oil refinery in the southwestern city of Krasnodar, its operational headquarters said on Telegram.
Ukraine’s foreign minister said Tuesday that Russia’s strikes on Kyiv and other cities show that President Vladimir Putin is running out of military options in his years-long invasion of Ukraine.
“Putin is a war criminal and loser who has no cards except terror. Moscow is losing on the battlefield. No number of missiles can change this,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said in a statement on social media.
The strikes on Ukraine came after Zelenskyy said on Friday “we have intelligence information about Russia preparing a new massive strike” and called for people to “protect your lives.”
“Please pay attention to air alerts, protect your lives,” he said. “Our services are working efficiently and are prepared; the Air Force and other defenders of our skies will be on duty 24/7, as always.”
The Ukrainian president has reiterated his call to allies to allow and finance the supply of Patriot missiles, which can intercept Russian ballistic missiles.
He wrote to President Trump and Congress last week asking for Patriot systems to respond to the intensifying Russian air attacks.
On Tuesday, Zelenskyy called on Europe to develop its own air defense systems and urged more support from Washington after Russia’s latest deadly drone and missile barrage.
“Europe needs its own anti-ballistic defence so that this war can finally be brought to an end. And assistance from the United States in supplying missiles for Patriot systems is absolutely necessary,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media.
Ukraine has also stepped up its strikes on occupied territories and on Russia in retaliation for the daily Russian bombardments.
Russia launched a record 8,150 long-range drones at Ukraine in May, an AFP analysis of Ukrainian air force data showed, up 24% from April.
Kyiv intercepted about 90% of the incoming drones and missiles in May, according to air force data.
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