At dawn on Sunday, the Ukrainian capital was hit by the largest drone and missile attack yet, with Russian forces firing 74 missiles and 496 drones into the city overnight. 25 ballistic missiles and 12 drones struck 33 targets, killing at least 30 civilians and injuring 91 people, according to Kyiv’s military administration chief Timur Tkachenko. Mayor Vitaly Klitschko called the raid the "most massive attack" the city had endured since the war began.
The assault struck a wide range of sites, including a hospital, an ambulance station, several residential blocks on the left bank’s Darnitskyi district and a high‑rise complex that collapsed after two successive missiles. In the same night a large crater opened beside a kindergarten, and the fire that followed destroyed the roof of the Dormition Cathedral, one of Kyiv’s historic religious sites.
Rescue crews hurried to the wreckage, but many residents were still unaccounted for, as families watched tearfully from nearby streets. One resident, Svitlana, recalled sheltering in a corridor during the raid, saying: "I've been through it all before. It wasn't scary," and later recounted an earlier attack that killed her mother.
The Russian government said the strike targeted military facilities and served as retribution for Kyiv’s own long‑range attacks on Russian infrastructure. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the policy of "increasing pressure on the Kyiv regime," while Ukrainian officials warned that it was wrong to equate a defender’s humanitarian response with the aggressor’s attacks.
Later that day, the Ukrainian Red Cross announced the destruction of its Kyiv warehouse, losing about 320,000 relief items worth more than 1.3 million pounds. The loss will hamper humanitarian response across the country.
Ukraine’s air defence system managed to intercept 497 of the 570 weapons launched, but the sheer volume strained its limits. Aviation expert Bohdan Dolintsev noted that Russia’s simultaneous use of missiles, drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles creates an exceptionally complex challenge for any air‑defence network.
In response, President Zelensky appealed to Washington for licences to produce Patriot air‑defence missiles, while Ukrainian military experts called on allies to supply additional systems. The Kremlin’s latest raid underscores the escalating intensity of the conflict and the growing vulnerability of Kyiv’s civilian infrastructure.
