KYIV — Russia launched at least 656 drones and 73 missiles at Ukraine overnight into Tuesday, killing at least 18 people, wounding more than a hundred and collapsing part of a four-story apartment building in the southeastern city of Dnipro, Ukrainian officials said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said rescuers were still searching the rubble hours after the strikes ended.
The attack is the largest single-night barrage of the year by Ukraine's count and follows a Friday warning from Zelenskyy that Moscow was preparing a "massive new strike." It lands as Kyiv runs short of interceptor missiles and President Trump's diplomatic attention remains fixed on the Middle East, leaving Ukraine publicly pleading for U.S. Patriot resupply.
The toll
Twelve people, including two children, were killed and 35 injured in Dnipro, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha said on Telegram, with about 50 buildings damaged. Ukraine's emergency service said a rescuer was among the dead in what appeared to be a double-tap strike. In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least six people were killed and 65 injured, including three children, as residential buildings caught fire or were damaged. Ten more, including a child, were wounded in Kharkiv, Mayor Igor Terekhov said.
The attack cut power to 140,000 residents of the capital, utility DTEK told Reuters, of whom 110,000 had been restored by Tuesday afternoon. Thousands sheltered in the Kyiv subway as air defenses fired overhead. "Now it feels like we’re seeing a new level of attacks against civilians," Olena Kozachenko, a 36-year-old mother who spent the night underground with her son, told NBC News.
What Moscow and Kyiv said
Ukraine's air force said 40 of the 73 incoming missiles and 602 of the 656 drones were shot down or neutralized, but 38 sites were struck. Russia's Defense Ministry acknowledged a massive strike using hypersonic missiles among the munitions, saying it targeted Ukraine's military-industrial complex in response to what it called "the terrorist attacks by the Kyiv regime." Residential buildings were hit in several cities.
Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said the attack showed President Vladimir Putin was running out of options. "Putin is a war criminal and loser who has no cards except terror," Sybiga wrote on social media. Zelenskyy repeated his appeal to Washington and to Europe. "Assistance from the United States in supplying missiles for Patriot systems is absolutely necessary," he said, and called on European governments to build their own anti-ballistic defenses. He wrote to Trump and to Congress last week with the same request.
The pattern
Russia fired a record 8,150 long-range drones at Ukraine in May, an AFP analysis of Ukrainian air force data showed, up 24 percent from April. Kyiv intercepted about 90 percent of incoming munitions last month. Moscow warned a week ago that it would carry out "systematic strikes" on military targets and decision-making centers in Kyiv, citing a Ukrainian drone strike on a dormitory in occupied Luhansk that killed 21. Ukraine has denied targeting civilians there.
Today's account draws on CBS and NBC; the Kremlin's view appears only as those outlets quoted Russia's Defense Ministry, and the Trump administration had not publicly responded to Zelenskyy's renewed Patriot request by press time. The next test of Western support is whether Washington moves on the interceptor request before the next overnight wave.