Russian attacks have killed at least 11 people across Ukraine, with seven deaths reported in Dnipro and four in Kyiv, in what officials described as one of Moscow’s largest assaults in recent months.
Dozens of others were wounded, including several children, after overnight strikes hit residential buildings and left emergency teams searching for people feared trapped beneath debris in the capital.
Air raid alerts were activated across much of Ukraine during the early hours of Tuesday as missiles and drones targeted multiple regions.
The latest assault followed a warning from Moscow last week that it would carry out “systematic strikes” on Ukraine after accusing Kyiv of launching a deadly attack on a student dormitory in an occupied area of eastern Ukraine, an allegation Ukraine rejected, saying it had targeted a Russian military unit.
Thick smoke was seen rising over central Kyiv as Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged residents to remain in shelters, while Kyiv Military Administration chief Tymur Tkachenko said: “The enemy is striking with ballistic missiles.”
Klitschko said rescue workers were still checking damaged buildings amid concerns that some residents could be buried under the rubble.
In Russia, the Krasnodar Krai emergency response centre said a fire broke out at the Ilsky Oil Refinery following a drone attack, though officials reported no casualties.
As the strikes continued through the early morning in Kyiv, residents heard the sound of drones overhead between more than a dozen powerful explosions.
Klitschko said the attack sparked fires near a petrol station, a construction site, several apartment blocks and two private homes, while power outages were also reported in parts of the city.
In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 10 people, including a child, were injured after the north-eastern city was hit by overnight drone and missile strikes.
Further south, officials said an industrial site in Zaporizhzhia was also targeted.
The latest wave of attacks came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned on Monday that Russia appeared to be preparing a major strike and urged people to take air raid alerts seriously.
“Intelligence warnings regarding Russian strikes remain in effect. A massive strike is possible, they have prepared one,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
Russia said last week that it would target military and decision-making centres in Kyiv, while urging foreign nationals to leave the city, claiming the move was in response to Ukraine deliberately striking a dormitory in Strabolinsk.
Ukraine’s General Staff said it had carried out an attack near Starobilsk on the night of May 21 to 22, but insisted the target was a Russian military unit.
Kyiv condemned Moscow’s threats as “nothing short of shameless blackmail” and called on its international partners to increase pressure on Russia.
Since a brief ceasefire expired in May, Russia has launched repeated missile and drone attacks on Kyiv, including strikes on an apartment block that killed 24 people, among them three children.
A separate Ukrainian drone attack on the Moscow region killed three people, with Zelensky describing the operation as an “entirely justified” response to continued Russian attacks.
