Russia kills 20 in 11-hour Kyiv assault after Ukraine hits oil sites

Kyiv,UPDATED: Jul 2, 2026 18:40 IST

Russia launched an 11-hour drone and missile attack on Kyiv overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 20 civilians and injuring more than 90 others, as emergency crews searched damaged residential buildings for survivors. Moscow said the bombardment was retaliation for Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian oil facilities.

The attack came amid an escalation in cross-border strikes by both sides. Russia said it targeted military-linked sites in and around Kyiv and other regions, while Ukrainian officials said the strikes hit civilian areas and renewed calls for more air defence support. Efforts to end the war, including recent diplomatic moves by the Trump administration, have not produced a breakthrough.

Loud explosions shook the Ukrainian capital for hours during the night, with many people taking shelter in subway stations after air raid alerts were issued. Kyiv city administration head Tymur Tkachenko said damage was recorded at 30 locations across the city, mainly residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said around 20 residential buildings were damaged. In Kyiv's Desnianskyi district, people were trapped inside a damaged nine-storey residential building, while in the Darnytskyi district, six levels of a nine-storey building collapsed.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called it a "night of horror" in the capital and said the death toll could rise as rescue teams continued their work. Kyiv resident Serhii Budko said three or four ballistic missiles hit his district. "We were inside the shelter and felt the shelter shaking - the ceiling and floor, everything," the 24-year-old told The Associated Press.

Russia's Defence Ministry said the attack used "high-precision long-range weapons" and drones against "military industry facilities and fuel and energy complexes in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, as well as military airfield infrastructure in four other regions of Ukraine". It also published a list of targets it said were hit, mostly plants manufacturing and assembling Ukrainian drones, missiles and components. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Gen. Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia's General Staff, reported the results of the "massive retaliatory strike" to President Vladimir Putin, and said the bombardment was "exclusively against military or military-linked targets".

Ukrainian officials rejected that justification. Sybiha said Ukraine was acting in self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter, while Russia remained the aggressor. Ukraine's air force said Russia fired 74 missiles, including 24 ballistic missiles, and 496 drones of various types in the attack. Ukrainian air defences have improved during the war, especially against drones, but ballistic missiles remain harder to intercept. Sybiha urged partner countries not to delay decisions on supplying air defence systems and missiles, while Ukrainian officials have repeatedly sought more Patriot systems.

The wider backdrop to the strikes is Ukraine's intensified campaign against Russian fuel and military infrastructure. Russia's Defence Ministry said the Kyiv attack was in response to Ukrainian long-range strikes that have caused severe fuel shortages and put pressure on Putin. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has described the campaign as a 40-day blitz, with oil refineries among the main targets. Ukrainian officials say they are trying to force Putin to the negotiating table, but so far Moscow has responded with more strikes. Sybiha said in April that domestic production now meets up to 75 per cent of Ukraine's military needs and supports up to 95 per cent of long-range strikes against Russia.

Elsewhere, a Russian guided bomb strike in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region killed a seven-year-old girl and wounded four other people, including an 11-year-old girl, all from the same family, according to regional head Oleksandr Hanzha. Overnight, Ukraine's General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck one of Russia's largest oil refineries in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, causing a fire. It also said Ukrainian forces hit a railway bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, which it said was used by Russian troops to move personnel, weapons and military supplies.

Analysts say Ukraine's recent drone strikes have pinned down Russian troops on the front line, disrupted supply lines and damaged oil facilities, altering the course of the war. At the same time, they say Putin believes time is on his side and that Western support for Ukraine will weaken. In an assessment published late Wednesday, the Institute for the Study of War said, "Russia's spring-summer 2026 offensive has failed to achieve operationally significant gains thus far, and Russian forces' rate of advance in June 2026 (was) a fraction of the rate of advance that Russian forces achieved in June 2025." The latest strikes on Kyiv underlined both the scale of the aerial war and the deepening cycle of attack and retaliation.

With PTI Inputs

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