Deadly Russian drone and missile attack ‘one of the biggest’ in Ukraine war
More than 315 drones and seven missiles were launched on Ukraine overnight, officials said.
At least three people were killed and 13 others were injured after Russia sent waves of drones and missiles in an attack on two Ukrainian cities, officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack on Kyiv “one of the biggest” in the war that has raged for over three years.
He said that Moscow’s forces had fired more than 315 drones, mostly Shaheds, and seven missiles at Ukraine overnight.
“Russian missile and Shahed strikes are louder than the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace,” Mr Zelensky wrote, as he urged “concrete action” from the US and Europe in response to the attack.
A maternity hospital and residential buildings in the centre of the southern port city of Odesa were also damaged in the attack, regional head Oleh Kiper said.
Two people were killed and nine injured in the city, according to a statement from the regional prosecutor’s office.
Another person was killed in Kyiv’s Obolon district, regional head Tymur Tkachenko wrote on Telegram.
Four people were injured in the attack on the capital, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Associated Press journalists heard explosions and the buzzing of drones around the city for hours.
The fresh attacks came a day after Moscow launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine in the biggest overnight drone bombardment in the three-year war. Ukrainian and Western officials have been anticipating a Russian response to Ukraine’s audacious June 1 drone attack on distant Russian air bases.
Russia has been launching a record-breaking number of drones and missiles targeting Ukraine while the two countries continue to swap prisoners of war, the only tangible outcome of recent direct peace talks held in Istanbul on June 2.
Both sides traded memoranda during the meeting setting out conditions for a potential ceasefire in the more than three-year-old war – but the inclusion of clauses that both sides see as non-starters make any quick deal unlikely. A ceasefire, long sought by Kyiv, remains elusive.
In Kyiv, fires broke out in at least four districts after debris from shot down drones fell on the roofs of residential buildings and warehouses, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration.
The Russian attack sparked 19 fires across Ukraine, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on Telegram.
“Russia must answer for every crime it commits. Until there is justice, there will be no security. For Ukraine. And for the world,” he said.
The death tolls from previous Russian strikes also continued to rise on Tuesday. In Kharkiv, rescuers found the body of a person trapped under the rubble of a building that was hit in a drone-and-missile attack Saturday, city mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram.
The discovery brings the number of casualties to five, with five more people potentially still trapped under the debris, Terekhov said.
Meanwhile, in the northern city of Sumy, a 17-year-old boy died in the hospital on Tuesday morning after being injured in a Russian strike on June 3, acting mayor Artem Kobzar wrote on Telegram. It brings the number killed in the attack to six.
Elsewhere, the Russian defence ministry reported downing 102 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The drones were downed both over regions on the border with Ukraine and deeper inside Russia, including central Moscow and Leningrad regions, according to the statement.
Because of the drone attack, flights were temporarily restricted in and out of multiple airports across Russia, including all four airports in Moscow and the Pulkovo airport in St Petersburg, the country’s second largest city.
