Russian Missile And Drone Attacks Kill At Least 14 In Kyiv Before NATO Summit

Russian missile and drone attacks on Kyiv early Monday killed at least 14 people and wounded at least 46, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city’s military administration, said as the assault damaged more than a dozen residential buildings.

The attack came as Ukraine’s military said Russia fired 68 missiles and launched 351 drones overnight, with the first explosions heard at about 1:40am local time (10:40 GMT Sunday) and further strikes at 2:10am and 3:15am.

ABC News

In the wider Kyiv area, six more people were killed and at least 10 others were wounded in districts surrounding Kyiv, authorities said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in a Sunday nightly address that another Russian assault might be coming before the NATO summit in Turkiye this week, saying, “Intelligence once again indicates that the Russians are preparing a new massive strike.”

Zelenskyy also said, “This is typical of Putin: right after America’s Independence Day and before the NATO summit in Ankara.”

Ukraine’s Air Force said a “serious shortage” of interceptor missiles meant none of the 23 ballistic missiles fired by Russia at Kyiv on Sunday night were shot down, while it said it shot down or suppressed 37 missiles and 326 drones.

The BBC reported that Zelensky appealed for allies to take “strong decisions” at this week’s Nato summit to provide Kyiv with air defences, after he said Ukraine’s military had been successful against cruise missiles and drones but not ballistic missiles.

ABC News

Zelensky later said it was “simply absurd that, in the modern world, production has still not been scaled up to the level actually required to protect people from ballistic terror,” as residents described loud explosions and the boom of air defences.

CBC said the ballistic missiles struck their targets and underscored Kyiv’s shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey.

In Kyiv’s Podilskyi district, rescue teams worked in the ruins of an apartment block with a big hole blown through its middle as specialists used sniffer dogs to try to find the missing among the wreckage.

Zelenskyy said Russia would continue hitting residential buildings as long as Patriot missiles remain in allies’ stockpiles, and he urged the U.S. and European partners to come out of the NATO summit in Ankara with “strong decisions” in support of air defence.

“A Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv has killed at least 14 people and damaged more than a dozen residential buildings in the second large-scale assault on the Ukrainian capital in less than a week”

Al Jazeera

NBC News reported that Zelensky told the nation it was struggling to intercept “Russian ballistic missiles” because of “the insufficient supply of interceptor missiles,” and he said the attack came hours before he was set to plead for more firepower at the NATO summit in Turkey.

The Guardian said the wave of strikes exposed widening gaps in Ukraine’s air defences on the eve of a Nato summit in Turkey, with Zelensky expected to reiterate the need for more Patriot interceptor missiles.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said the bombardment targeted weapons factories in Kyiv, including sites it said produce drones, sea drones, armoured vehicles and missiles, as well as facilities that repair air defence systems and fuel and energy infrastructure in the city and surrounding region.

The CBC said the claims could not be independently verified, while it also reported that Russia’s aerial attacks have repeatedly hit civilian areas and that more than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.