A major Russian attack kills 20 in Kyiv as Ukrainian strikes batter Moscow’s oil sector

At least 18 people are dead in Kyiv after Russia launched what is being described as the ‘most massive attack yet’ on the city.

KYIV, Ukraine -- Russia hammered Kyiv in an 11-hour drone and missile attack overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 20 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. As dawn broke, emergency crews were still digging through the rubble of collapsed and charred apartment buildings in search of victims.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the deadly bombardment was in response to Ukraine’s long-range strikes, which have caused severe fuel shortages and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine’s increasingly frequent and large-scale attacks -- described by Zelenskyy as a 40-day blitz -- have especially targeted oil refineries, causing a fuel crisis that has frustrated Russians.

More than four years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour, 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. 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.

Ukraine’s top diplomat says it was a ‘night of horror’ in Kyiv

The attack killed 20 people in Kyiv, according to Kyiv city administration head Tymur Tkachenko. More than 90 others were injured, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it was a “night of horror” in the capital. Kyiv had a pre-war population of roughly three million people, but the current number of residents is unknown.

Damage was recorded in 30 locations across the city, mainly residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Some 20 residential buildings were damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

Flashes from exploding drones and missiles lit up the night, and loud booms echoed through Kyiv. Tracers from air defence fire streaked through the air as a huge pall of black smoke rose into the sky.

Kyiv resident Serhii Budko said three or four ballistic missiles hit his district of the city. “We were inside the shelter and felt the shelter shaking -- the ceiling and floor, everything,” the 24-year-old told The Associated Press.

In Kyiv’s Desnianskyi district, people were trapped inside a damaged nine-storey residential building, and in the Darnytskyi district six levels of a nine-storey building collapsed.

In Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, a Russian guided bomb strike killed a seven-year-old girl and wounded four other people, including an 11-year-old girl, all members of the same family, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.

Russia’s General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov reported the results of the “massive retaliatory strike” to Putin, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said. The bombardment was “exclusively against military or military-linked targets,” Peskov said.

Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukraine have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.

Ukrainian officials urge countries to provide more air defences

The attack used “high-precision long-range weapons” and drones to strike weapons factories and energy facilities in and around Kyiv, and “military airfield infrastructure” in other parts of Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry’s statement said.

In all, Russia fired 74 missiles and 496 drones in the attack, Ukraine’s air force said.

Ukraine’s air defenses have improved throughout the war, especially in countering Russian drones. But it is harder to stop ballistic missiles, which accounted for roughly a third of the missiles fired overnight.

Sybiha, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said in April that the countries weapons factories meet up to 75 per cent of its military’s needs. But he and other Ukrainian officials have pleaded with partner countries to supply more Patriot systems that offer the best protection from Russian aerial attacks.

He rejected any Russian attempts to justify the strikes as retaliation for Ukraine’s long-range attacks, saying Russia remained the aggressor in this war.

Ukraine attacks another Russian oil refinery

Ukrainian forces struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries overnight in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, starting a fire, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

Also, Ukrainian forces struck a railway bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, it said. The bridge was used by Russian forces to transport personnel, weapons and military supplies, according to the General Staff.

By Hanna Arhirova and Illia Novikov, The Associated Press