Russia unleashes a massive assault on Ukraine’s capital, killing more than 20

By Victoria Butenko, Lex Harvey, Kosta Gak, Anna Chernova, Ivana Kottasová, CNN

Kyiv (CNN) — Iryna Moskaeva and her children jumped out of their beds and started running after an explosion rocked their Kyiv apartment early on Thursday, one of many residential buildings hit during a massive Russian attack that killed at least 21 people across the Ukrainian capital.

But there was nowhere to go. “All the windows in the room were shattered, and the door was jammed – I couldn’t open it,” the 61-year old told CNN.

Moskaeva, who was eventually rescued by firefighters, said this was the second time that a Russian attack damaged her home. “The first time there was an attack like this, I started crying – I was shaking so badly,” she related. Now unable to enter her apartment and going to stay with relatives, she said she was worried about getting to work on Monday. “How am I supposed to get there? There’s no power, no clothes to change into, there’s nothing.”

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched nearly 500 drones and more than 70 missiles toward the country in a “massive combined strike,” simultaneously targeting the capital from different directions. While most of the missiles and drones were intercepted, a total of 33 projectiles made impact.

Ukrainian authorities said 110 emergency response teams were deployed to 59 locations across the city to address the aftermath of the attack.

Moscow’s military called the assault a retaliation for Ukrainian attacks on its own civilian infrastructure.

As Thursday afternoon Ukraine time, 21 people were confirmed dead and at least 85 were injured, including two children, according to Ukrainian emergency services and Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv city military administration. Search and rescue operations continued, with more people feared to be buried under the rubble.

The strikes damaged more than 20 sites across the city, “most of them ordinary residential buildings,” as well as an ambulance station, a research institute, a hotel and other businesses, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Some 52,500 Kyiv residents, including 4,500 children, spent the night sheltering in the capital’s subway stations, according to the Kyiv Metro.

“It was a terrible night for Kyiv,” said the city’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko.

The “most significant destruction” was to a residential building in Darnytskyi, to the southeast of the capital, part of which “was literally blown away,” Klitschko said. Rescuers are continuing to search for people under the rubble, among them a 15-year-old girl and her family, he added.

Russia’s defense ministry said its military launched a “massive strike using high-precision, long-range weapons,” including drones, in response to Ukraine’s “attacks on civilian infrastructure within Russian territory.”

Ukraine has launched an unprecedented drone campaign against Russia in the past month, targeting energy infrastructure in long-range attacks that Zelensky has framed as a key strategy to force Moscow to end the war.

Overnight Thursday, Ukraine’s military said it struck one of Russia’s largest oil refineries in Kstovo, hundreds of miles to the east of Moscow. It also said it struck a railway bridge over the Donets River which it says Russia uses for military activities, and a Russian command and observation post in Kharkiv.

The Russian defense ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 327 drones launched from Ukraine.

Russia said its latest strikes targeted military and energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Cherkasy and Chernihiv regions — but Ukraine said most of the damage was to civilian infrastructure and residential buildings.

Speaking to reporters during his daily press call, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow would “continue to increase pressure on the Kyiv regime in order to achieve its objectives.”

Photos and videos showed fires burning on crumbling buildings – many of them residential apartment blocks – and rescuers combing through large piles of rubble and debris.

“We demand strong international responses. Not only words of condemnation but concrete action to stop Russian terror,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha said, warning that the death toll would likely rise.

A long night in bomb shelters

The strikes were presaged by a request from Zelensky Wednesday for residents to be “especially careful” and to heed air-raid sirens, warning that Russian President Vladimir Putin has been “preparing a massive strike against Ukraine for some time.”

Residents packed into metro stations Wednesday evening, preparing for a long night of strikes. Sirens began sounding around 8 p.m. local time and continued well into the morning, with the attack lasting 11 hours, according to city officials. The relief did not last long – another air raid alarm was announced in Kyiv just before noon on Thursday.

More than four years on from Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine’s cities face near-nightly attacks from Moscow’s drones and missiles. But Kyiv’s forces have also found ways to strike back at its much larger neighbor.

On a single night last week, Russia reported intercepting 660 drones across 12 regions – suggesting one of the largest Ukrainian attacks of the war.

Those attacks have penetrated deeper into Russia, bringing the realities of war to cities much further from the front lines.

But Moscow’s damaging air assaults on Ukraine also keep coming.

Earlier in June, a Russian attack in the heart of Kyiv set fire to a prominent Ukrainian monastery complex, the UNESCO-listed Kyiv Pechersk Lavra.

CNN’s Teele Rebane contributed reporting.

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