Massive Russian attack kills 22 people

Wednesday, 3 June 2026

A man clears debris in his apartment building damaged after a Russian missile strike that hit in Kyiv on Tuesday.

Ukraine

Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities overnight, killing at least 22 civilians and wounding 138 others, authorities said on Tuesday (local time).

Russian President Vladimir Putin has escalated Moscow’s aerial campaign in recent weeks in an apparent bid to take advantage of Ukraine’s shortage of US-made air defence systems and persuade an increasingly pessimistic audience at home that Moscow is prevailing in the 4-year-old war.

Emergency rescue crews digging through the wreckage of apartment buildings pulled out the bodies of a 3-year-old child as well as those of a woman and her 8-year-old son in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, officials said.

The attack stretched past dawn, with explosions reverberating across cities. Officials said 16 people were killed in Dnipro and six in Kyiv.

Residents of the capital have been on edge for days after Russia warned last week that a massive aerial attack was coming and told foreign diplomats to leave. None appeared to heed the call and no embassies immediately reported damage yesterday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed for more US and European support, describing the massive overnight attack as “an explicit statement by Russia: If Ukraine is not protected from ballistic missiles and other missile strikes, those strikes will continue”.

Putin has stepped up his aerial campaign against Ukraine, with Russian forces recently launching another of their powerful hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missiles. Ukraine's shortage of air defence systems, in part because of depleted US stocks from the Iran war, has left civilians especially vulnerable to ballistic missiles, even as Kyiv’s defences stop most of Moscow’s drones.

Russia unleashed 73 missiles and 656 drones across Ukraine, according to the country’s air force, with the main targets including Kyiv, Dnipro and the eastern cities of Poltava, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian air defences destroyed or suppressed 40 missiles and 602 drones.

Putin is keen to generate some positive news from the conflict that began with Russia’s February 2022 invasion of its neighbour and hasn’t gone according to plan.

Western officials and analysts say Ukrainian drones are pinning down Russian troops on the front line, choking Russian supply lines in occupied regions of Ukraine and disrupting oil facilities deep inside Russia that provide vital revenue for Moscow. That has made the war, which Moscow refers to as a “special military operation,” more visible to Russians and increased pressure on Putin.

US-led peace efforts have fizzled out as the sides made no progress on key differences and after the war in Iran grabbed Washington’s attention. Zelenskyy accepted an unconditional ceasefire demanded by US President Donald Trump but Putin refused.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said in a statement that Tuesday’s bombardment struck military-industrial facilities in the Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi and Sumy regions.

Ukraine said residential, energy and civilian infrastructure was hit but did not confirm or comment on damage to any military-related sites.

Putin signalled that Russia won’t let up its attacks. He said on Tuesday that Ukraine’s May 22 drone attack on a college dormitory in Starobilsk in the Russia-controlled Luhansk region of Ukraine that killed 21 had given the war “a whole new dimension”.

Ukraine said the attack in Starobilsk hit a Russian drone pilot training centre.