Russian missile and drone strikes killed at least ten people and wounded dozens across Ukraine overnight, in one of Moscow's most devastating barrages in recent months, officials said Tuesday.
The latest escalation in a war has now ground on for more than four years with no end in sight.
At least four people were killed in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, according to BBC reporting, with six more dead in the eastern city of Dnipro. Dozens were injured across multiple cities, including several children, the BBC reported, as emergency crews raced to reach people feared trapped under the rubble of damaged apartment buildings.
"The enemy is striking with ballistic missiles," Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's City Military Administration, said, as quoted by the BBC.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged residents to remain in shelters. "Explosions in the city. Air defence forces are working! Stay in shelters!" he wrote on Telegram, according to AFP reports.
Large plumes of smoke rose from the city centre, the BBC reported, as fires broke out near a gas station, a construction site, and several residential blocks. Blackouts were reported across multiple districts.
The strikes came days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had explicitly warned of an impending large-scale Russian attack. "Intelligence warnings regarding Russian strikes remain in effect. A massive strike is possible, they have prepared one," Zelenskyy said in a nightly video address, as reported by the BBC.
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Moscow last week warned it would launch "systematic strikes" on Ukraine following a Ukrainian drone attack on a dormitory in Russian-held Luhansk that killed 21 people — though Kyiv dismissed those threats as "nothing short of shameless blackmail."
Since a brief ceasefire expired in May, the BBC reported, Russia has launched several waves of missile and drone attacks on the capital, including strikes on an apartment block that killed 24 people, among them three children.
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Zelenskyy has renewed urgent calls to allies for Patriot missile systems to counter the intensifying Russian air campaign, writing directly to US President Donald Trump and Congress last week requesting the air defence equipment.
US-mediated peace efforts, meanwhile, remain stalled, with Washington's attention and resources increasingly consumed by the conflict in West Asia.
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