KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A relentless overnight assault on Ukraine’s capital killed at least 16 people as Russian forces unleashed waves of missiles and drones that hammered Kyiv for hours, officials said Thursday.
The barrage marks the latest escalation in Moscow’s campaign against civilian infrastructure. Russian commanders have stepped up ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv in recent months, betting on Ukraine’s dwindling supply of U.S.-made Patriot interceptors. Those systems remain the only Ukrainian weapons capable of downing such missiles.
Large-scale Russian attacks have become a grim fixture of this summer. Seventeen people died in a strike on Kyiv and its outskirts just over two weeks ago, while nine perished in the city two days before that. The United Nations reported last week that Kyiv ranked among the hardest-hit cities in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 wounded.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has taken the fight to Russian territory. Long-range drone strikes on oil facilities have triggered fuel shortages across Russia. Ukrainian forces have also hit warehouses belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, rattling the public.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy renewed his appeals for more Patriot interceptors. Yet international stockpiles remain depleted amid the Iran conflict and more than four years of all-out war against Ukraine.
The overnight attack combined cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and jet-powered drones, straining air defenses further. Emergency crews recorded 15 deaths in the capital and one in the surrounding region. About 40 people suffered wounds, Zelenskyy said, as air raid sirens blared past sunrise.
More than 38,000 residents, including over 2,000 children, sheltered in Kyiv’s metro stations.
“It was a massive attack,” Zelenskyy posted on social media. Russia, he added, had prepared the assault for a long time, mixing missile types to inflict maximum damage on civilian infrastructure.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed it struck an industrial site producing components for Flamingo cruise missiles, along with drone production facilities, an ammunition depot, and a logistics hub.
Ukraine’s intelligence agency told Ukrainska Pravda that Russia manufactures more than 200 cruise and ballistic missiles monthly. Moscow has stockpiled over 1,100 cruise missiles and roughly 130 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, along with hundreds of other missiles, the agency said. Independent verification remains impossible.
The attack destroyed the top two floors of a nine-story apartment building in Solomianskyi district. Fires broke out on lower floors. Rescue teams pulled people from two residential buildings and a school shelter.
Larysa Bondaruk, 60, sat outside clutching her cat, Chanel, rescued by firefighters. Her neighbor’s grandson died in the rubble.
“A rocket hit the roof. It was incredibly loud,” she said. “Debris and doors were blown out. Columns of smoke, columns of fire, screams, crying and despair.”
The strikes damaged 30 apartment blocks, a school, a children’s hospital, and a kindergarten across 12 locations in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi, Sviatoshynskyi, and Solomianskyi districts.
Ukraine’s military reported hitting an oil refinery in Nizhnekamsk and the Tamanneftegaz terminal in Volna, igniting fires at both sites. Russian air defenses claimed to have shot down 726 drones overnight, one of Ukraine’s largest aerial operations of the war.
The violence has put neighboring nations on edge. Poland scrambled NATO aircraft to monitor its airspace. Romania reported an unidentified drone crash near its border with Ukraine and deployed F-16 jets to destroy a naval drone near a Black Sea gas project. Moldova confirmed at least one drone entered its airspace.
“Russia is increasingly testing the resolve of NATO and its partners, violating the sovereignty of neighboring states and deliberately expanding the risks posed by its war far beyond Ukraine,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen described an escalating campaign of threats aimed at unsettling European citizens and dividing the bloc.
As Ukraine presses for more air defense systems, the coming weeks will reveal whether Western allies can deliver the interceptors needed to blunt Moscow’s intensifying aerial campaign.
