Russia pummeled Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles early Tuesday, killing at least 11 people and wounding dozens of others after it had warned for days that it was preparing a major air attack against the country.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 73 missiles and 656 drones between Monday night and Tuesday morning. In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people were killed and at least 65 were wounded, including two children.
In the industrial city of Dnipro, further south, seven people were killed and around 35 were wounded, local authorities said. Fifteen people were also wounded in the eastern city of Kharkiv, which lies near the Russian border.
Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that it had carried out a major attack on Ukraine, claiming it targeted defense production plants and transportation infrastructure used by Ukraine’s military.
“In response to terrorist attacks by the Kyiv regime, the Russian Armed Forces launched a large-scale strike using long-range, high-precision air, land and sea-based weapons — including hypersonic aero-ballistic missiles and attack drones,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
“The objectives of the strike were achieved. All designated targets were hit,” it added.
Earlier, Russia’s Foreign Ministry had warned of imminent strikes against Kyiv as part of an ongoing retaliation campaign for a deadly Ukrainian attack on a vocational school and dormitory in the occupied Luhansk region in May.
The ministry explicitly warned foreign nationals, including the personnel of diplomatic missions and offices of international organizations, to leave the Ukrainian capital.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone strike killed one person in southwestern Russia’s Kursk region, local authorities said Tuesday morning. Another drone sparked a fire at an oil refinery in the southern Krasnodar region.
AFP contributed reporting.
