Russia has launched the largest air raid in three years of the war against Ukraine in a second straight night of massive drone and ballistic missile strikes in which the capital city, Kyiv, was once again the focus of heavy attack.
Across the country at least 12 people were killed, according to officials, including three children in the Kyiv region, and dozens more injured, as officials released the first assessment of casualties and damage on Sunday morning.
Ukrainian officials later confirmed that Russia had launched 298 drones and 69 missiles in multiple waves. Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences had shot down 110 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the US to speak out against the Russian attacks.
“The silence of America, the silence of others in the world only encourages Putin,” Ukraine’s president wrote on Telegram. “Every such terrorist Russian strike is reason enough for new sanctions against Russia.”
The huge scale of the latest attack, and its civilian victims, prompted the European Union’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, to call for “the strongest international pressure” on Russia to stop this war”.
“Last night’s attacks again show Russia bent on more suffering and the annihilation of Ukraine. Devastating to see children among innocent victims harmed and killed... We need the strongest international pressure on Russia to stop this war,” Kallas said on X.
Russian strikes hit locations across Ukraine on Saturday night into Sunday, from the southern coast and east to the west. Four people were reported dead in the western Khmelnytskyi region, four in the Kyiv region, and one in Mykolaiv in the south.
Serhiy Tyurin, the deputy head of the Khmelnytskyi military administration, said in a Telegram post: “Last night, the Khmelnytskyi region came under hostile Russian fire, which resulted in the destruction of civilian infrastructure … Unfortunately, four people were killed.”
Emergency services said four people had been killed and 16 injured in the Kyiv region, including three children in the “massive night attack”.
They were later identified as siblings: Stanislav, Roman and Tamara Martyniuk, who died when their family home in Zhytomyr region was struck.
Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said that by 3am on Sunday there were “already 10 injured” in the capital, adding that a student dormitory in Holosiivskyi district had been hit by a drone and one of its outside walls was on fire.
The intensity and frequency of this weekend’s strikes contrasted sharply with Trump’s claim that Vladimir Putin was interested in peace. The US president, who has been talking up his peace efforts, has not yet commented on the weekend’s heavy strikes.
The attacks meant Kyiv Day – celebrated on the last Sunday in May – began with exhausted people sheltered in bunkers, metro stations and basements.
Odesa, Dnipro, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Konotop, Chernihiv, Ternopil and Kharkiv were also hit, according to local media reports.
With waves of drones beginning at about midnight on Saturday, accompanied by warnings of ballistic missile launches as the night wore on, a Guardian reporter in Kyiv heard three drones reach the centre of the city, despite action by air defences, and the sound of loud detonations.
Russian authorities reported that a dozen drones flying towards Moscow had been shot down.
The attack on Kyiv began with Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city’s military administration, warning “the night will not be easy” as residents tracked waves of launches on air raid warning apps.
At one point Tkachenko reported more than a dozen Russian drones were flying around the capital.
“Some of the drones over Kyiv and the surrounding area have already been dealt with. But the new ones are still entering the capital,” he posted.
Ukraine and its European allies have sought to push Moscow into signing a 30-day ceasefire as a first step to negotiating an end to the war.
In a blow to their efforts, Trump this week declined to place further sanctions on Moscow for not agreeing to an immediate pause in fighting, as Kyiv had wanted.
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, wrote on Telegram: “Without pressure, nothing will change and Russia and its allies will only build up forces for such murders in Western countries.
“Moscow will fight as long as it has the ability to produce weapons.”
