KYIV — Russian forces hammered Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities overnight, firing more than 70 missiles and launching 650 attack drones that killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens more, officials said Tuesday.
Moscow has intensified its aerial bombing of Ukraine as its battlefield advances have stalled and President Vladimir Putin comes under increasing pressure to find a way out of the war.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry warned last week of “consistent, systematic strikes” in Kyiv and encouraged foreign citizens and diplomats to flee the city.
Moscow said the attacks were a response to a Ukrainian strike on a student dormitory in Russian-occupied territory, which reportedly killed at least 21 people. Ukrainian authorities denied launching such an attack.
Ukrainian and Western officials and international analysts say the more likely reason for the bombing campaign is that Russia’s invasion, now in its fifth year, is making little progress,
“Moscow is losing on the battlefield,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X Tuesday morning. “No number of missiles can change this.”
“The only reason for Russia’s overnight horrific attack,” he added, was that Putin was “a war criminal and loser who has no cards except terror.”
Ukrainian drones, flying beyond the front line into Russian-occupied territory and deep into Russia proper, have inflicted significant damage on Moscow’s supply lines and energy infrastructure.
In the last few months, Ukraine’s military has killed or seriously wounded roughly the number of soldiers that Moscow mobilizes, foiling Russia’s strategy of throwing large numbers of troops at Ukrainian positions. Moscow’s advance has slowed significantly and in some cases been reversed, analysts say.
On Tuesday, Russian forces pummeled the cities of Dnipro, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia and the Poltava region. But the bulk of the attack focused on the Ukrainian capital, Ukraine’s Air Force wrote on social media.
More than 50 drones and 30 missiles avoided Ukrainian air defenses to strike targets across Ukraine, the Air Force said.
In Kyiv, at least six people died and 81 were injured, Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city‘s military administration, wrote on Telegram.
In Dnipro, in southeastern Ukraine, at least 16 people were killed, two of them children, and 42 wounded. Many of the deaths were caused by a strike that leveled a four-story residential building, according to Oleksandr Hanzha, the head of the regional military administration.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said residential buildings and “other purely civilian infrastructure” were damaged in Kyiv and posted photos of the destruction.
“A large-scale attack and an absolutely clear statement from Russia: if Ukraine is not protected from ballistic and other missile strikes, these attacks will continue,” he wrote on social media.
Zelensky called again on the United States to send Ukraine more Patriot missiles to intercept Russian missiles.
“We are counting on the support of our partners and on effective responses to today’s attack,” he wrote.
He made a similar request last week in a letter to President Donald Trump and Congress.
Moscow warned that more was to come.
“Systematic attacks on Ukraine’s military infrastructure, including targets in Kyiv and other cities, will continue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, contributed to this report.
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