Before dawn broke over Kyiv, Russia unleashed a barrage of ballistic missiles on the Ukrainian capital and its surrounding region, killing at least 11 people and injuring dozens, officials said — an attack that landed just as leaders prepare to gather for a NATO summit in Turkey.
With daylight still hours away, rescuers began hauling residents from buildings torn open by the overnight strikes, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram.
Klitschko said the death toll in the capital had climbed to 11, while 46 people across the city were reported wounded.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 68 missiles — including 23 ballistic missiles and six super and hypersonic missiles — and launched 351 drones. Air force units shot down or neutralised 37 missiles and 326 drones, according to the data, but none of the ballistic missiles or super and hypersonic missiles were intercepted.
The latest barrage followed a deadly strike days earlier: 31 people were killed in a Russian attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday, described by officials as the city’s deadliest strike so far this year.
A young child is rescued from an upper storey apartment
Emergency services said at least 15 residential buildings were damaged or destroyed, including a nine-storey block in the historic Podilskyi district that was largely ripped apart from the fifth floor upward.
Officials said four residential buildings were hit in Podilskyi alone. The General Prosecutor’s office said Podilskyi — along with the eastern Darnytskyi district — sat at the center of the strikes.
Damage was also recorded in two other districts of the city, officials said.
Russia’s defence ministry described the operation as a “massive” attack on Ukraine’s capital and other locations, saying it used long-range, high-precision weapons launched from air, land and sea, as well as drones.
The ministry said military and energy sites were struck in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, along with military airfields in several other Ukrainian regions.
In the wider Kyiv region, local officials reported one person killed and 15 injured. The southern Black Sea port city of Odesa was also hit, with at least one person wounded, officials said.
US President Donald Trump and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky are expected to discuss the war on the sidelines of the summit in the Turkish capital Ankara, which begins tomorrow.
After that, Mr Trump plans to speak with Russian leader Vladimir Putin as Washington seeks to revive stalled peace efforts.
Rescuers work at a residential building in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district after a Russian missile strike
Reporters in Kyiv said they heard more than 10 explosions during a ballistic missile alert early this morning. About 30 minutes later, several flashes cut across the sky as another sequence of blasts echoed through the city.
“The enemy is striking with ballistic missiles,” Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv region’s military administration, wrote on Telegram.
Smoke rises after a Russian missile strike in Kyiv
Klitschko said air defences were active and urged residents not to leave shelters.
Tkachenko said the assault sparked four fires — all in residential buildings.
“Places where people were simply sleeping tonight,” he wrote.
Authorities earlier reported eight people killed in Kyiv and one in Bucha district northwest of the capital, with at least 34 wounded across Kyiv and the surrounding area.
“There are no words that can ease this pain,” Mr Tkachenko said.
A police officer inspects the remnants of a missile after a Russian strike
In recent weeks, Ukraine has stepped up attacks on energy facilities inside Russia, seeking to weaken the Kremlin’s war effort.
It has also struck Moscow-controlled areas of Ukraine that were seized before the current invasion.
In Russian-annexed Crimea, governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said a Ukrainian strike near Sevastopol briefly knocked out electricity.
“Following an enemy attack on energy infrastructure near Sevastopol, our city was temporarily left without electricity,” Mr Razvozhayev wrote on Telegram.
Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on state-backed Max that Russian air defences brought down several waves of drones heading toward the Russian capital.
Diplomacy and fighting
The White House said Mr Trump would meet Mr Zelensky on Wednesday during the NATO summit.
“The president’s obviously getting together with him to talk about how we can end the war. That’s been a priority of his for a long time,” a senior US official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
A woman comforts a young boy in the aftermath of the strikes on Kyiv
The official said Mr Trump would then “follow up” with Mr Putin.
The talks come as diplomatic efforts to bring the war to an end have largely stalled.
Mr Zelensky said yesterday that Ukrainian forces were still fighting for the strategic eastern town of Kostyantynivka — a gateway to key positions in the Donetsk region.
Russia said on Friday it had captured the town, but Kyiv rejected that claim as “a lie”.
“Fighting is also continuing for Kostyantynivka, which (Russian leader Vladimir) Putin has already claimed as his own, but it is obvious that he will never dare to appear there,” Mr Zelensky said in a nightly address.
He warned that Moscow was preparing new large-scale strikes ahead of the NATO summit.
Both Mr Putin and Mr Zelensky held separate phone calls with Mr Trump on Saturday to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence.
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