Russia launches drones and missiles attack on Kyiv, kills at least 16, over 120 injured

In its most lethal strike on Kyiv this year, Russia on Tuesday obliterated a section of a residential apartment block as part of a massive assault involving hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles. 

The attack killed at least 16 people and injured 124 others across the Ukrainian capital.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the strike, calling it one of the most horrific assaults on Kyiv since the war began. Wednesday was declared a day of mourning in the capital.

"These are acts of pure terrorism," Zelensky said. "The entire world — the United States and Europe — must respond as civilized societies respond to terrorists. Putin only continues this war because he still can."

According to Zelensky, Russian forces launched 440 drones and fired 32 missiles across Ukraine in the overnight attack.

Residents react at the site of an apartment building damaged during a Russian strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Thomas Peter Purchase Licensing Rights

Russia's Defence Ministry claimed it had targeted military-industrial facilities in the Kyiv region and Zaporizhzhia province using air-, land-, and sea-launched weapons.

Ukrainian officials said approximately 27 locations in Kyiv were hit during multiple waves of strikes that damaged residential buildings, schools, and vital infrastructure.

One of the most devastating incidents occurred in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, where a missile struck a nine-storey apartment building, leveling an entire section into rubble. Emergency workers searched through the debris and used a crane to evacuate wounded residents, including an elderly woman lowered from a window on a stretcher.

“It’s simply horrific,” said Viktoriia Vovchenko, 57, a nearby resident. “I’ve never seen anything like this. People were cut up… elderly people, children. How much longer can they torment ordinary people like this?”

Kyiv police confirmed that 15 people died and 124 were wounded in the capital, including a 62-year-old U.S. citizen who died from shrapnel injuries. Another person was reported killed in Odesa, in southern Ukraine.

Russian strikes kill 16 in 'horrific' attack on Kyiv

While Ukraine has launched drone strikes deep into Russian territory, its attacks have not inflicted comparable damage on civilian infrastructure.

Russia's Defence Ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 147 Ukrainian drones overnight, including in the Moscow region.

Although Russia has targeted Ukrainian cities throughout the conflict, the scale and intensity of recent strikes have increased, even as tentative peace talks — the first in over three years — have resumed.

Military analyst Oleksandr Kovalenko noted a shift in Russian tactics, saying Moscow is now focusing drone and missile barrages on one city at a time in an effort to overwhelm Ukrainian air defences.

“It’s a new challenge we must quickly adapt to,” he said.

Now in its fourth year, Russia's full-scale invasion continues to escalate. Russian forces are pushing forward in eastern Ukraine and have opened a new front in the northeastern Sumy region, despite international calls for a ceasefire.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has vowed to swiftly end the war, has shifted U.S. policy away from Kyiv and towards accepting some of Moscow’s rationale for the invasion. At the G7 summit in Canada, Trump departed early amid tensions over his stance. He also called for Russia to be readmitted into the group, from which it was expelled in 2014 following the annexation of Crimea.

Zelensky, attending the summit, is seeking stronger sanctions against Russia and more military aid. His hoped-for meeting with Trump did not materialize, with the White House citing urgent Middle East matters for the president's early departure.