Russia launched a large-scale attack on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv with missiles and drones overnight into Thursday, killing at least two people and injuring more than a dozen.
The intense strikes hit residential buildings and triggered a fire in a hotel on a central boulevard. Tymur Tkachenko, head of the capital’s military administration, said two people had been killed and 16 injured.
People were also trapped in a damaged nine-storey residential building and a roof of another high-rise apartment building was on fire, Kyiv’s mayor said.
Vitali Klitschko said the first to sixth floors of an apartment building collapsed after a direct hit. Writing on Telegram, he urged residents to remain in shelters, describing an ongoing “furious enemy attack” on the capital.
The attack with ballistic and cruise missiles and drones affected all of the city’s 10 districts, on both sides of the Dnipro River. Many residents took shelter at metro stations after the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and other authorities issued the first warnings of the attack.
Carrying children, belongings, tents and pets, people crowded into underground stations, as air raid alerts were issued for most of Ukraine’s territory on Thursday amid Russia’s worst attack on the country since mid-June.
Zelenskyy had earlier warned that intelligence reports showed an overnight attack on the country was likely and said he was cutting short his stay in Dublin, which he visited for the start of Ireland’s six-month term in charge of the rotating presidency of the EU.
Russia has intensified its attacks on Kyiv in recent weeks, even as Ukraine’s own long-range drone campaign against Russian military sites and energy facilities has caused fuel shortages and disrupted supply lines inside Russia.
Nato member Poland scrambled fighter jets as a preventive measure, the Polish armed forces said on X.
“These actions are of a preventive nature and are aimed at securing and protecting the airspace, especially in areas adjacent to the threatened regions,” the post said.
With Reuters and Associated Press
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/02/russia-attacks-kyiv-missiles-drones-ukraine
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