Dozens of Russian missiles pound Kyiv in major attack

At least one person killed after dozens of missiles arrive in less than an hour and three-storey building catches fire

Russia has carried out one of its biggest-ever ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, launching a five-hour raid that left at least one person dead and seven injured, with fires and damage across the city.

Ukrainian officials said the capital was hit with about 40 Iskander-M and hypersonic Zircon missiles. Residents heard an air raid siren sound at 1.30am. There was the sound of air defences, followed minutes later by a series of booms and explosions.

Houses in Kyiv’s historic centre shook, and car alarms blared, as dozens of missiles arrived in less than an hour. There was a second air raid siren at 6.30am, with more impacts reported.

A three-storey building caught fire in the central Shevchenkivsky district. Rescuers dug out several people trapped inside and recovered a body. Four other areas were hit, with fires reported at office and residential buildings and a dormitory.

Residents sheltering inside Lukyanivska metro station posted footage after the ceiling in the ground-floor vestibule collapsed because of a massive blast wave. The station is temporarily closed.

“According to preliminary information, one person was, sadly, killed as a result of the attack,” the city military administration said on Telegram. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said seven people were wounded.

Kyiv’s military said it had shot down 18 missiles in Sunday’s attack, which was aimed primarily at the Ukrainian capital. It added that 108 out of 125 drones had also been downed.

“The missiles just kept coming one after another, the explosions were powerful, it was horrible,” 47-year-old Kyiv resident Ganna Zagorodnia told the AFP news agency. “I thought that life was just about to end.”

Russia has been firing drones and missiles at Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities almost daily since it launched its full-scale 2022 invasion.

Zelenskyy ⁠said last week that the US and Ukraine had reached a political ​agreement on licences to ​make the prized Patriot interceptors, adding ​that he hoped production could begin by the end of the year. Ukraine’s own stocks of interceptors appear to have dwindled.

But ​the mounting Russian ‌attacks in the ​fifth year of Moscow’s ​full-scale war are heaping pressure on Kyiv’s foreign partners to accelerate supply of anti-ballistic defences.

“Protection against ballistic missiles is our constant and top priority right now,” Zelenskyy said on X on Sunday. “Interceptors are needed every day.”

The attacks come amid big anti-government protests in Kyiv after Zelenskyy’s decision to sack the country’s popular and modernising defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov. Demonstrators want Fedorov reinstated and the Soviet-style commander-in-chief, Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, sacked instead.

At ‌one location in western Kyiv, emergency workers picked through smouldering debris and doused bombed-out apartments.

A ‌resident who identified himself as Vlad told Reuters he had been inside his apartment when a blast tore off his balcony door, which smashed him in the head.

“My grandmother lives with me, and she can’t walk. How could I run away and leave her behind?” he said.

Rescue workers pulled four people from a burning private home in the Sviatoshynskyi district, while in the Shevchenkivskyi district they rescued residents from a burning three-storey building. A fire in a non-residential building was also contained. One person was later found dead.

Firefighters also responded to blazes in the Solomyanskyi, Desnianskyi and Dnipro districts.

There have also been attacks on Russia. On Saturday, Ukraine sent attack drones to destroy e-commerce warehouses in the Moscow and Tambov regions, killing eight people and causing major fires.

Earlier on Saturday Russian strikes killed five people and wounded almost 20 in several regions.

“In response to Russian strikes on our civilian infrastructure and on our cities and communities, two major logistics facilities were hit – in the Moscow and Tambov regions,” Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian president alleged the centres were used “to supply sanctioned components for drone production and navigation equipment”.

According to the United Nations, June was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine since April 2022, with at least 293 people killed.

Talks on ending Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II remain frozen, while fighting at the front is effectively at a standstill.