A massive Russian drone-and-missile attack targeted the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and other regions in the country for a second consecutive night, killing at least 12 people and injuring dozens, officials said early Sunday.
According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Russia hit the country with 367 drones and missiles, making this the largest single aerial attack of the more than three-year-long war.
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, said that in all, Russia used 69 missiles of various types and 298 drones, including Iranian-designed Shahed drones, he said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attacks, saying that Russian missiles and drones struck more than 30 cities and villages across Ukraine.
Zelenskyy wrote on X that Sunday’s targets included Kyiv, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, Chernihiv, Sumy, Odesa, Poltava, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, and Cherkasy regions and urged Western partners to ramp up sanctions on Russia.
“These were deliberate strikes on ordinary cities. Ordinary residential buildings were destroyed and damaged,” he said.
“Without truly strong pressure on the Russian leadership, this brutality cannot be stopped. Sanctions will certainly help,” Zelenskyy said.
The ‘most massive Russian air attack’
At least four people, including three children, were killed in Kyiv and 16 were injured, according to Ukraine’s security service.
Another four people were killed in the Khmelnytskyi region, in western Ukraine. One man was killed in the Mykolaiv region, in southern Ukraine, local officials said.
The attacks over the past 48 hours were among the most intense Russian aerial strikes on Ukraine since the February 2022 full-scale invasion.
“A difficult Sunday morning in Ukraine after a sleepless night. The most massive Russian air attack in many weeks lasted all night,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X. Fires broke out in homes and businesses, set off by falling drone debris.
Despite POW swaps, no letup in the war
The attack came on the third day of the biggest prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine, the only tangible outcome from peace talks in Istanbul earlier this month that have so far failed to produce a ceasefire.
And even as the exchange amounted to a rare moment of cooperation between the warring sides, battles have continued along the roughly 1,000-kilometre front line, where tens of thousands of soldiers have been killed, and neither country has relented in its deep strikes.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defence Ministry on Sunday claimed it shot down 110 Ukrainian drones overnight, with authorities forced to shut down airports across several cities, including Moscow’s airport.
The airports at Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Zhukovsky in Moscow have also temporarily ceased operations, local media reported.
Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, claimed Russian air defence destroyed six drones that were “flying toward Moscow.”
