Russia Pounds Kyiv With 600 Drones and 90 Missiles in One of the War's Largest Barrages

Russia unleashed one of the largest aerial bombardments of its full-scale war on Ukraine overnight, hammering Kyiv and surrounding regions with hundreds of drones and scores of missiles in an hours-long assault that left at least four people dead and roughly 100 wounded.

Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 90 missiles and 600 drones in the combined attack, which stretched through the night and into the early morning. Among the weapons was an Oreshnik, a hypersonic ballistic missile that struck Bila Tserkva, a city about 50 miles south of the capital. The scale and mix of munitions overwhelmed parts of Ukraine's air defenses despite a high reported interception rate.

In Kyiv itself, at least two people were killed and 77 injured, according to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who said there was damage in "every district of the city." In the broader Kyiv region ringing the capital, two more people were killed and nine others were wounded. Rescue crews dug through rubble as fires burned in residential areas struck during the barrage.

The attack reverberated well beyond the capital. Explosions were reported in the central cities of Cherkasy and Kropyvnytskyi and in the western Khmelnytskyi region, while Russian strikes injured civilians in the southern and eastern oblasts of Odesa and Kharkiv. The geographic spread underscored Moscow's strategy of striking multiple regions at once to stretch Ukrainian defenders thin.

The use of the Oreshnik carried a pointed message. Russia first deployed the intermediate-range missile against Ukraine in late 2024, and the Kremlin has touted it as a weapon capable of evading Western-supplied air defenses. Its appearance in this barrage signaled Moscow's willingness to escalate its long-range campaign against Ukrainian cities even as diplomatic efforts to halt the fighting have repeatedly stalled.

For Kyiv's residents, the night was another grinding reminder that more than three years into the invasion, the war's front line runs through their apartment blocks and power grids as much as the battlefield. Ukrainian officials renewed appeals to Western partners for additional air-defense systems and interceptor missiles, warning that the tempo of Russian strikes has strained the country's ability to shield civilians.

The barrage landed at a fraught diplomatic moment, with U.S.-brokered efforts to halt the fighting having repeatedly faltered. Ukrainian air defenders reported shooting down or jamming the bulk of the incoming drones and missiles, but the sheer volume launched in a single night has become a defining feature of Russia's campaign — a strategy designed to exhaust interceptor stockpiles, probe for gaps in the defensive net and terrorize civilians far from the front lines.