Russian overnight drone and missile strikes killed at least 10 civilians across Ukraine, including seven in Kyiv, where rescuers searched for survivors beneath the wreckage of a partially collapsed apartment building, local officials said Monday.
Russia fired 352 drones and decoys overnight, as well as 11 ballistic missiles and five cruise missiles, Ukraine’s air force said. Air defenses intercepted or jammed 339 drones and 15 missiles before they could reach their targets, a statement said.
The strikes came nearly a week after a combined Russian attack on Ukraine last Tuesday killed 28 people in Kyiv, 23 of them in a residential building that collapsed after sustaining a direct hit by a missile. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called that attack one of the biggest bombardments of the war, now in its fourth year.
Russian forces have for several months been trying to drive deeper into Ukraine as part of a renewed summer push along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) frontline, though the Institute for the Study of War said their progress has been limited.
"Russian forces have failed to make significant gains during this period of intensified offensive operations, however, due in part to the fact that Russian forces are largely relying on poorly trained infantry to make gains in the face of Ukraine’s drone-based defense," the Washington-based think tank said late Sunday.
At the same time, Russia has pounded civilian areas with long-range strikes in an apparent attempt to weaken public morale.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said preliminary data indicated that Russian forces used North Korean missiles in the Kyiv strike.
He called Russia, North Korea and Iran, which has provided drones to Russia, a "coalition of murderers" and warned of a potential spread of the "terror" if their alliance continues.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s defense and new ways to pressure Russia will be the two main topics in his visit to the United Kingdom on Monday.
Drones and missiles hit residential areas, hospitals and sports infrastructure in numerous districts across Kyiv in the early hours of Monday, emergency services said. The most severe damage was in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where a section of a five-story apartment building collapsed.
Six people were killed in that district, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Ten others, including a pregnant woman, were rescued from a nearby high-rise that also sustained heavy damage in the blast.
More than two dozen people were injured in the Kyiv attack, including four children, according to the city military administration head Tymur Tkachenko.
Dozens of vehicles, some burned out and others mangled by flying debris from the blast, formed a snarl in the courtyard in front of the partly demolished building, which had collapsed down to the second floor.
Onlookers, some wrapped in blankets, watched tearfully as the cleanup operation took place. Dozens of volunteers worked to remove broken glass, downed tree branches and other debris.
Oleksii Pozychaniuk, 29, who lives in the building next to the one struck in the attack, said he heard the whistle of the rocket approaching from inside his apartment and "froze in terror" before feeling the impact.
"Windows burst out, glass was flying everywhere," he said. "We barely made it downstairs with my child, everything here was on fire. We didn’t see the neighboring building yet because everything was covered in smoke, the cars were smoldering, tires were bursting from the high temperature which was also scary."
Klitschko told reporters that rescue workers were still searching the collapsed building for survivors.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, a Russian short-range drone attack killed two people and wounded 10 more in the Chernihiv region late Sunday night, authorities said. Three children were among the wounded, according to the regional administration head, Viacheslav Chaus.
Another person was killed and eight were wounded overnight in the city of Bila Tserkva, around 85 kilometers southwest of the capital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 23 Ukrainian drones overnight into Monday.
