Russia launches largest air attack yet on Ukraine

Russia has intensified strikes on Ukraine, with the highest number of drones and missiles launched in a single night yet, reports BBC Sports.
At least 12 people, including three children, were killed and dozens injured in widespread strikes, officials said. The attack came a day after the Ukrainian capital Kyiv suffered one of the heaviest assaults of the war.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said the “brutality cannot be stopped” without “strong pressure on the Russian leadership”. Russia has been ignoring calls for a ceasefire.
He continued to say the “silence of America” and others “only encourages Putin”, an apparent effort to exert pressure on US President Donald Trump who has said the Russian leader is interested in ending the war.
Ukraine’s Air Force said that since 20:40 on Saturday local time (17:40 GMT), Russia had carried out strikes using 367 missiles of various types, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and drones.
The air force said it had shot down 45 cruise missiles and destroyed 266 UAVs, with most regions in Ukraine affected and hits recorded in 22 locations.
Rescuers were working in more than 30 cities and villages after the “massive” strike, Zelensky said in a statement on X on Sunday morning.
“Russia is dragging out this war and continues to kill every day,” he said.
“The world may go on a weekend break, but the war continues, regardless of weekends and weekdays. This cannot be ignored.”
Russia’s defence ministry said it had inflicted damage on targets including military airfields, ammunition depots and electric warfare stations, claiming damage across 142 areas.
According to Ukraine’s Minister of Internal Affairs, Ihor Klymenko, 13 regions were attacked, with more than 60 people injured, 80 residential buildings damaged, and 27 fires recorded. Deaths were reported in several regions.
Klymenko called it a “combined, ruthless strike aimed at civilians”.
Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.
This includes Crimea – Ukraine’s southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.
In terms of the numbers of drones and missiles launched by Russia, Saturday night was the highest yet.
Russia is able not only to just manufacture them at a faster rate, but they are also evolving. Shahed drones are now being packed with more explosives and improved technology to evade detection.
Russia’s previous largest drone attack came just a week ago when 273 drones were launched on the central Kyiv region and Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions in the east, according to Ukraine’s air force.
Ukraine said the 13 regions hit by strikes on Sunday were Kyiv and the capital’s wider region, as well as the regions of Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Sumy and Poltava.
Of the people killed, three were children aged eight, 12 and 17 in the Zhytomyr region, Ukraine’s state emergencies service DSNS said.
Klymenko said they were from the same family and their parents were in hospital.
Two women, aged 85 and 56, were killed after a house in Kupiansk was hit, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional office.
In the Kyiv region, four people were killed and 16 injured, including three children, DSNS said.
In Kyiv, local officials reported 11 injuries, multiple fires and damage to residential buildings, including a dormitory.
Hundreds of people headed to the city’s deep metro stations for shelter. The din of drones filled the air, occasionally punctuated by the booms of air defences, or the moments of impact. Several fires were reported.
A BBC colleague messaged to say a block of flats had been destroyed, just a five minute drive from where she lived.
The strikes come as the capital marks its annual Kyiv Day holiday.