Russia hammered Kyiv in an 11-hour drone and missile attack overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 21 civilians in the city and injuring scores more in what Moscow said was retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.
Loud explosions shook the Ukrainian capital, where more than 50,000 people sheltered in subway stations after authorities issued air raid warnings, the Kyiv Metro said. Emergency crews dug through the rubble of collapsed and charred apartment buildings all day in search of victims.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the bombardment was in response to Ukraine’s recent barrage of long-range strikes, which have caused severe fuel shortages and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.
Ukraine’s frequent attacks inside Russia — described by Zelenskyy as a 40-day blitz — have especially targeted oil refineries, causing a fuel crisis that has frustrated Russians already feeling the war’s economic toll.
More than four years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor, Ukraine’s technological advances in drone engineering have in recent months given it an edge, analysts and Western officials say. Its strikes on supply routes behind the front line have robbed the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield and made its progress slow and costly, they say.
Kyiv’s forces have especially targeted supplies to Crimea, triggering the worst fuel crisis on the Black Sea peninsula since it was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014 and delivering a blow to the Kremlin’s narrative that Moscow is winning the war.
Ukrainian officials say they are trying to force Putin to the negotiating table, but so far Moscow’s response has been to hit back.
Diplomatic efforts to end the war, most recently by the Trump administration, haven’t produced results. President Donald Trump and Zelenskyy are expected to attend next week’s NATO summit in Turkey.
Putin thinks that time is on his side, that Western support will peter out and that Ukraine’s resistance will eventually collapse under pressure from strategic bombing, analysts say.