Russia on Friday launched one of the largest barrages of missiles and drones of the war at targets across Ukraine, killing at least four people and damaging buildings in Kyiv, in what Moscow suggested was retaliation for Ukraine’s recent audacious assault on Russian strategic bomber bases.
Kyiv appeared to be one of the main targets. The thuds of air-defense batteries and the staccato bursts of heavy machine guns echoed through the night in the capital, Kyiv, as military units defending the city tried to take down missiles streaking overhead and attack drones that swooped in, their ominous buzz trailing over neighborhoods.
Over the course of some five hours after midnight, Russian launched 407 attack drones, nearly 40 cruise missiles and six ballistic missiles from land, air and sea at towns and cities across the breadth of the nation, the Ukrainian Air Force said in a statement.
“Russia doesn’t change its stripes — another massive strike on cities and ordinary life,” President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine wrote on social media. “They targeted almost all of Ukraine.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the attack came “in response to terrorist acts” by Ukraine, in an apparent reference to its strikes on the Russian bomber bases last weekend. On Wednesday, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia told President Trump that Russia would retaliate for these strikes, Mr. Trump said, further dimming hopes for a cease-fire that were already faint.
The Ukrainian attack, which involved smuggling drones deep into the Russian heartland and launching them from semi trucks, destroyed or damaged at least a dozen aircraft, including many of Moscow’s nuclear-capable strategic bombers.
“They attacked pretty harshly,” Mr. Trump said on Thursday about the Ukrainian assault. “They went deep into Russia.”
Combined with a renewed ground offensive in the east, Friday’s attack was part of an intensifying Russian campaign to bombard Ukrainian cities with swarms of drones and missiles, intended to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses. Russia has launched more than 1,000 drones per week at military and civilian targets in Ukraine in recent months, including nearly 500 in a single night last week.
Mr. Trump compared Russia and Ukraine to two fighting children who needed to work out their differences before their bloody war could end.
“Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office as Germany’s chancellor, Friedrich Merz, urged him to leverage the power of the United States to end the conflict.
Mr. Trump avoided answering a question about whether he was willing to increase pressure on Russia. The Kremlin has repeatedly resisted his calls for an unconditional cease-fire.
In Friday’s strike by Russia, Ukrainian fighter jets, antiaircraft missile troops, electronic warfare and unmanned systems units, and mobile fire groups took out 406 of the 452 air attack vehicles, with strikes reported in 13 locations, according to the air force. These figures could not be independently verified.
Multiple fires were reported across Kyiv, including at a 16-story apartment block. Another fire near the city center covered an area of more than 5,000 square feet.
Of the four people who died in Kyiv, three were rescuers who had rushed to extinguish the fires, Ukrainian authorities said. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, also said that 22 people had been injured in the capital, and that search-and-rescue operations were continuing in several locations.
Parts of western Ukraine that have not come under frequent attack were also targeted.
The city of Ternopil, which is hundreds of miles from the front, came under heavy assault, local authorities said, with at least 10 people injured, including five emergency workers.
In Lutsk, in northwestern Ukraine, Russia struck a high-rise apartment building and other locations, injuring at least 15 people, the local authorities said.
The Russian military claimed it had struck various military targets on Friday, though this could not be independently verified. Throughout the war, Russia has repeatedly targeted urban areas, increasing the risk of civilian casualties. The Ukrainian military did not disclose any information about casualties among its ranks or damage to its facilities.
Since the beginning of this year, the Russian military has carried out attacks against Ukraine using nearly 27,700 aerial bombs, almost 11,200 Shahed drones, around 9,000 other attack strike drones and more than 700 missiles, including ballistic ones, Mr. Zelensky said on Thursday.
“This is the pace of Russian strikes, and they deliberately set this tempo from the very first days of the full-scale war,” Mr. Zelensky said. “Russia has restructured its entire state, society and economy to be able to kill people in other countries on a massive scale and with impunity.”
Before the overnight bombardment, Russia launched high-explosive aerial bombs at the center of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Thursday morning, partly destroying the Regional State Administration building and damaging several surrounding structures.
On Wednesday night, the Russians attacked the city of Pryluky in the northeastern Chernihiv region, killing at least five people, including a 1-year-old baby, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukraine also continued its campaign to slow the bombardments by attacking Russian military installations deep inside of Russia. The governor of the Russian Saratov region, Roman Busargin, said that overnight on Thursday, there was a large fire after an oil depot at the Engels air base came under attack by Ukrainian drones.
“There are no casualties as of yet,” he said.
A powerful explosion was reported by an airfield in the Bryansk region and the local governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said some 46 Ukrainian drones targeted the area. He said there were no casualties.
Marc Santora has been reporting from Ukraine since the beginning of the war with Russia. He was previously based in London as an international news editor focused on breaking news events and earlier the bureau chief for East and Central Europe, based in Warsaw. He has also reported extensively from Iraq and Africa.
Constant Méheut reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people.
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