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At ten am, smoke was still rising from several districts of Kyiv after Russia launched one of its largest air strikes on Ukraine’s cities in three years of war. Explosions were recorded in seven districts of the city, a result of more than 300 Shahed type drones, missiles and decoy drones which targeted the Ukrainian capital.
The munitions fired at Kyiv account for the majority of the 499 weapons unleashed across the country, including nineteen cruise, ballistic and anti-radar missiles. As it stands, official figures suggest that only four people were injured in Kyiv while no deaths were recorded in the capital. However the death toll in Odesa, where a maternity hospital among other civilian infrastructure sites were hit, has risen to two with nine people injured.
Last night’s attack, which lasted for more than five hours and led to many Ukrainians taking shelter in hallways, basements and metro stations across the country, is just one of a number of escalating attacks in recent weeks and follows the largest overnight attack of the war on Sunday night.
How Ukraine Used Cheap Drones and a Lot of Ingenuity to Strike a Major Blow Against Russia
“I spent most of the early hours of Saturday in my hallway feeling the walls shake as the ballistic missiles exploded”, Chris York reports from Kyiv
While far from the deadliest assaults Ukrainian cities have seen, the recent attacks represent a significant increase in the scale and frequency of Russian attacks against metropolitan centres, particularly in the number of cities being targeted in the same night. The last month alone has seen three of the largest scale combined assaults since 2022 with six of the ten largest having been carried out this year.
According to Moscow, and to US President Donald Trump, these attacks are a retaliation to Operation Spider’s Web in which Ukrainian intelligence sneaked First Person View (FPV) drones into Russia concealed inside the roofs of prefabricated cabins and destroyed or damaged 40 strategic Russian aircraft, including 34% of Russian cruise missile carriers.
According to Trump, speaking from Air Force One on Friday “Ukraine “gave Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night.” However these larger attacks against Ukrainian cities are being carried out in concert with increased Russian efforts to attack Ukraine across the board.
Having retaken the vast majority of the Kursk region, captured in a surprise incursion by Ukraine last summer, Russia is now amassing troops at the border. In the last six weeks it has pushed around six kilometres into the neighbouring Ukrainian Sumy region. Attacks on the city of Sumy itself, just 28 kilometres from the border, are intensifying with the city centre having recently been hit by a Russian MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) in an attack on the 3rd of June that killed six people, including a 17 year old boy.
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Zarina Zabrisky, who first exposed the “human safari” in Kherson for Byline Times in July 2024, reports on the UN’s historic confirmation that Russia deliberately targeted civilians in a campaign of terror.
In the east, while Ukrainian president Zelensky claims the Donbas front has “stabilised”, evidence suggest the Russians are laying the groundwork for a new, larger summer offensive around the key towns of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka, the latter of which has come under significant fire from aerial bombs in recent weeks.
The Kremlin has also implied that it will make another push for Kharkiv region over the summer, as it appears to be testing Ukrainian defences there and around Zaporizhzhia in the south. According to a recent investigation by The Economist, data suggests a sharp increase in Russian production of raw explosives as well as drones and missiles so far in 2025 compared to any point in 2024.
With discussion of peace having already lost whatever momentum it may have had, and talks in Istanbul delivering little more than new agreements to swap prisoners, the summer appears set to be one of the most active and deadly periods of the war so far.
As traditional fighting methods like artillery and gun battles are superseded by the use of drones, which sources on both sides claim are now responsible for four out of five frontline deaths, the problems caused by Ukraine’s ammunition shortage have been lessened. However the country still faces serious troop shortages while Russian military recruitment has surpassed Kremlin targets every month this year.
On the ground in Ukraine, there has been little faith in peace negotiations in recent months and Donald Trump’s promises and reflections have been met with reactions raging from skepticism to fury, with much of the criticism levied at the US President’s efforts centring around Moscows apparent lack of desire for peace. The latest strikes, retaliatory or not, seem likely to continue to escalate.
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