By Valentyn Ogirenko and Vladyslav Smilianets
KYIV, July 6 (Reuters) – Russian missiles and drones struck Kyiv early on Monday, killing at least 11 people and heavily damaging apartment blocks, officials said, in an attack just a few days after the deadliest assault on the Ukrainian capital this year.
The bombardment also comes ahead of a NATO summit in Turkey this week, where U.S. President Donald Trump will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to make a renewed push to end the war, which began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Rescue crews were pulling residents from buildings shattered by the overnight barrage, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a post on Telegram.
Klitschko said the death toll in the capital had risen to 11, with 46 people wounded throughout the city.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had used 68 missiles, including 23 ballistic and six super and hypersonic missiles, as well as 351 drones in the attack. Air force units shot down or neutralised 37 missiles and 326 drones, but none of the ballistic missiles or super and hypersonic missiles, the air force data showed.
Ukraine has repeatedly said it is short of interceptors for its Patriot defence system, which are the only effective weapon to shot down incoming ballistic projectiles.
The attack came days after 31 people were killed in a Russian attack on the capital in the early hours of Thursday – the deadliest strike on the city this year.
‘SHE’S SO KIND’
At least 15 residential buildings had been damaged or destroyed in the attack, including a nine-storey block in the historic Podilskyi district which had been largely destroyed from the fifth level up, emergency services said.
Officials said four residential buildings had been struck in the Podilskyi district alone. That district, along with the eastern Darnytskyi, were at the epicentre of the strikes, the General Prosecutor’s office said. Damage was also recorded in two other city districts.
In the Podilskyi district, rescue crews searched through rubble as smoke rose from an apartment block with a gaping hole in its top floors, Reuters television footage showed.
Emergency workers used ladder trucks to reach upper floors while firefighters battled lingering flames. A 22-year-old Alyona was waiting to hear news about her 19-year-old friend Vika, who was missing after the attack.
“We’re sitting here and waiting until they retrieve them … She’s so kind, only 19 years old. She’s such a kind girl,” Alyona told Reuters, holding back tears, as she watched the rescue operation from a nearby playground.
BARRAGE OF MISSILES AND DRONES
Russia conducted a “massive” attack on Ukraine’s capital and other locations with long-range, high-precision air-, land-, sea-launched weapons and drones, the Russian defence ministry said on Monday. The ministry also said military and energy facilities were hit in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, as well as military airfields in several other Ukrainian regions.
Reuters witnesses reported a series of explosions in and around the capital and said air defences were in action against Russian drones.
Another person was killed and a further 15 injured in the surrounding Kyiv region, and the southern Black Sea port of Odesa also came under attack with at least one person injured, local officials said.
Ukraine’s neighbour Poland, a NATO and EU member, briefly scrambled fighter jets as a preventive measure.
Ukraine launched its own drone attacks on Russia, damaging the Baltic Sea ports of Vysotsk and Ust-Luga, a major oil exporting outlet, Russian authorities said on Monday. Ukrainian attacks also caused a power blackout in the Crimean city of Sevastopol, home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Anna Pruchnicka; Editing by Michael Perry and Lincoln Feast.)
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