Russia pounds Kyiv with ballistic missiles and drones, setting buildings ablaze and trapping residents

The overnight assault

Russia launched a large-scale aerial bombardment of Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities in the early hours of Thursday, sending residents scrambling to bomb shelters and metro stations. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that more than 20 ballistic and cruise missiles were fired at the capital in the first two hours of the attack. Attack drones came first, buzzing low over the city, followed by powerful explosions from ballistic missiles that shook buildings and set off car alarms.

Kyiv came under ballistic missile attack.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a hotel roof was on fire on the central Shevchenko Boulevard, and the top floors of a high-rise apartment building were engulfed in flames. A nine-storey residential building was damaged, trapping people inside. An ambulance station was also hit, injuring several first responders, including one critically.

Casualties and damage

At least one person was killed and 11 others were hospitalised in the capital, according to the head of the Kyiv city military administration Tymur Tkachenko and mayor Klitschko. The full extent of casualties was not immediately known, with emergency services responding to multiple sites where residents were believed trapped under rubble. Five medical workers were wounded, Klitschko said.

People were trapped in a damaged nine-storey residential building.

Rescuers raced to a collapse at the apartment building while firefighters worked to extinguish blazes in at least two districts. Pictures posted online showed a fire burning out of control at the top of the building on Shevchenko Boulevard, and residents crowded into underground stations with sleeping bags and pets.

Zelenskyy's warning and return

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had warned hours earlier that intelligence indicated Russia was preparing a "massive strike." He cut short a visit to Dublin, where he attended the start of Ireland's six-month term leading the rotating EU presidency, and urged Ukrainians to take shelter.

We know that Putin has been preparing a massive strike against Ukraine for some time. That is exactly the threat we are facing tonight.

Zelenskyy said Putin "wants to keep fighting" and must face conditions that make it impossible to continue the war. The attack came two weeks after another strike on Kyiv that killed at least five people and damaged the 950-year-old Kyiv-Pechersk monastery.

Ukraine's escalating long-range campaign

The bombardment follows an intensification of Ukraine's own drone campaign against military and energy infrastructure deep inside Russia. Last week, Zelenskyy said he had approved a 40-day "influence operation" by Kyiv's long-range strike units aimed at compelling Russia to end the war. Ukrainian forces struck a satellite communications centre in Dubna, Moscow region, for the second time on Tuesday, and have hit 11 oil refineries and other targets in June.

As for strikes against critical infrastructure in general, and energy infrastructure in particular, of course these attacks on our infrastructure facilities create problems, that's obvious.

Fuel shortages and rationing have been reported across Russia, including in occupied Crimea and Siberia. A CSIS analysis published Wednesday said over 90% of Russian casualties were from drone attacks, and estimated total Russian casualties at approximately 1.4 million (killed, wounded, or missing) since February 2022, with Ukrainian casualties between 525,000 and 625,000.

Regional and allied response

Attacks were also reported in cities in eastern and southern Ukraine. Russia hit four stations in the northern Chernihiv region and five retail fuel stations in the Dnipropetrovsk region overnight, killing a woman. NATO member Poland scrambled fighter jets as a preventive measure to secure airspace adjacent to threatened regions.

The glide bomb has become a central feature of the conflict. Russia reportedly launched more than 1,800 glide bombs in the first week of June alone. Ukraine announced in May that it had developed its own glide bomb, the Vyrivniuvach, after 17 months of domestic production.