Russia pounds Ukraine in mass drone and missile attack

KYIV: Russia launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine early on Sunday, killing at least four people and injuring dozens, in one of the most sustained attacks on the capital since the full-scale war began. Neighbouring Poland closed its airspace near two southeastern cities and its air force scrambled jets in response until the danger had passed. Ukraine's military said that Russia launched 595 drones and 48 missiles overnight and its air defences shot down 568 drones and 43 missiles. It noted that the main target of the strike was the capital Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack, which lasted more than 12 hours, damaged a cardiology clinic, factories and residential buildings. Russia's defence ministry said on Sunday it had carried out a 'massive' attack on Ukraine using long-range air and sea-based weapons and drones to target military infrastructure, including airfields. Moscow has denied targeting civilians in its war against Ukraine, although thousands have been killed and residential areas extensively damaged by its attacks.
Zelensky again urged the international community to act decisively to cut off Russia's energy revenues that fund its attack. Ukraine has so far failed to convince US President Donald Trump to impose punitive sanctions on Moscow. 'The time for decisive action is long overdue, and we count on a strong response from the United States, Europe, the G7, and the G20,' he said on the Telegram messaging app. Kyiv awoke to loud explosions, drones flying overhead and air defences booming. Smoke from one of the strike sites drifted across the morning sky as the air raid alert ended at 09:13 am (06:13 GMT), nearly seven hours after it began.
Journalists visited an area in the suburbs of Kyiv, where rows of newly built homes were almost totally destroyed, and parked cars flattened by falling debris. Residents sifted through the wreckage of an apartment block after their windows were blown in by the force of a blast. Some people hurried to metro stations underground, from where they followed events on their mobile phones.
Attacks on such a scale have stretched Ukraine's limited air defences throughout 2025. Zelensky said on Saturday an additional Patriot missile system from Israel had been deployed and he expected two more to arrive this autumn. He and other officials have asked international partners for more to protect Ukraine's skies, but air defence systems are limited in availability and other nations are keen to bolster their defences amid perceived threats from Russia.
Zelensky said Sunday's attack targeted several regions, including the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, where authorities said at least 16 people were injured. Emergency services said at least four people were killed, while 67 people were reported wounded across the country by local authorities. Among the fatalities was a 12-year-old girl, although that has not been officially confirmed, Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said on Telegram.
The Kremlin on Sunday dismissed threats by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that Kremlin officials should know where the bomb shelters were, saying that Ukraine was losing the war and that its negotiating position was worsening. Zelensky suggested to Axios that the centres of Russian power, like the Kremlin, were potential targets, saying that Kremlin officials 'have to know where the bomb shelters are.'
'Zelensky is trying to demonstrate to the Europeans, who now act as the breadwinners, that he is such a brave soldier,' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television. 'Meanwhile, the state of affairs at the front indicates the opposite. With every passing day, the situation for Ukraine is inexorably deteriorating. And everyday Ukraine's negotiating positions are inexorably deteriorating.'
Russia controls 114,918 square km, or about 19 per cent of Ukraine, and has taken 4,729 square km of Ukrainian territory in the past year, according to the pro-Ukrainian DeepState map project. When asked directly by state television's Kremlin correspondent Pavel Zarubin how the Kremlin would perceive an attack on the centre of Russian power, Peskov said that 'it's better not to even talk about it.' In May 2023, Russia accused Ukraine of trying to attack the Kremlin with drones. President Vladimir Putin was not in the Kremlin at the time of the attack. — Reuters