Russia pummeled Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles early Tuesday, killing at least 21 people and wounding dozens of others after it had warned in recent 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 six people were killed and at least 66 were wounded, including two children.
In the industrial city of Dnipro, further south, 15 people were killed, 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.
Ukraine’s foreign minister said the attack on Tuesday was a sign that Russian President Vladimir Putin was becoming desperate.
“Putin is a war criminal and a loser who has no cards except terror. Moscow is losing on the battlefield. No number of missiles can change this,” Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga wrote in a post on X.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack showed that Europe needs to develop its own air defense systems and that support from the United States remains crucial.
“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,” Zelensky wrote on social media.
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.
