Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine kills 15, injures 116
By SAMYA KULLAB and VASILISA STEPANENKO
Associated Press
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 others while they slept in their homes, local officials said Tuesday, with the main barrage centering on the capital Kyiv.
Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 others were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble.
Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, calling the Kyiv attack “one of the most terrifying strikes” on the capital.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on Kyiv in recent months and came after two rounds of direct peace talks failed to make progress on ending the war, now in its fourth year.
Russia has repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine with missiles and drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. Russia says it only attacks military targets.
Russia has in recent months stepped up its aerial attacks. It launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine on June 10 in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the war. Russia also pounded Kyiv on April 24, killing at least 12 people in its deadliest assault on the capital in eight months.
The intensified long-range attacks have coincided with a Russian summer offensive on eastern and northeastern sections of the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where Ukraine is short-handed and needs more military support from its Western partners.
Uncertainty about U.S. policy on the war has fueled doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on. Zelenskyy was set to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump in Canada on Tuesday and press him for more help, but the White House announced Trump would return early to Washington on Monday night because of tensions in the Mideast.
Ukrainian forces have hit back with their own domestically produced long-range drones.
The Russian military said it downed 203 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian regions between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported briefly halting flights overnight in and out of all four Moscow airports, as well as the airports in the cities of Kaluga, Tambov and Nizhny Novgorod, as a precaution.
The overnight Russian drone strikes, meanwhile, also struck the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the regional administration.
Russian President Vladimir Putin “is doing this simply because he can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it,” Zelenskyy said.
The almost nine-hour Russian attack delivered “direct hits on residential buildings,” the Kyiv City Military Administration said in a statement. “Rockets — from the upper floors to the basement,” it said.
A U.S. citizen was died in the attack after suffering shrapnel wounds, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters.
Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block after it was struck by a ballistic missile, Klymenko said.
“We have 27 locations that were attacked by the enemy. We currently have over 2,000 people working there, rescuers, police, municipal services and doctors,” he told reporters at the scene of one of the attacks.
Olena Lapyshniak, 49, was shaken from the strike that nearly leveled her apartment building. She heard a whistling sound and then two explosions that blew out her windows and doors.
“It’s horrible, it’s scary, in one moment there is no life,” she said. “There’s no military infrastructure here, nothing here, nothing. It’s horrible when people just die at night.”
People were wounded in the city’s Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi districts. Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said fires broke out in two other city districts as a result of falling debris from drones shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.
Moscow escalated attacks after Ukraine’s Security Service agency staged an audacious operation targeting war planes in air bases deep inside Russian territory.
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