{"id":565316,"date":"2026-07-02T14:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/565316\/"},"modified":"2026-07-02T14:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T14:39:12","slug":"russian-missiles-and-drones-kill-at-least-18-on-night-of-horror-for-ukraines-capital-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/565316\/","title":{"rendered":"Russian missiles and drones kill at least 18 on \u2018night of horror\u2019 for Ukraine\u2019s capital \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russia<\/a> launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine\u2019s<\/a> capital \u200cKyiv<\/a> early on Thursday morning, tearing apart several residential buildings, killing at least 18 people and wounding scores.<\/p>\n

Multiple explosions shook central Kyiv and reverberated across the capital throughout the night as thousands of residents rushed to bomb shelters and underground metro stations.<\/p>\n

The attack caused the \u200bwidest destruction in Kyiv so far this year, and was the deadliest since at least May when 24 people were killed in a strike that brought down an apartment block.<\/p>\n

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> said damage had been reported at more than 20 sites across the capital.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main strike was directed at Kyiv,\u201d he said. \u201cAir defence supplies for Ukraine are an absolute and critical priority,\u201d he said, urging Ukraine\u2019s allies to maintain contributions to a fund to buy US weapons including Patriot air \u200bdefence missiles for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Russia launched 74 missiles and 496 drones overnight, the Ukrainian air force said. Yuri Ihnat, the Air Force spokesperson, said the number of ballistic missiles was unusually high and the interception rate for them was low. Ukraine has struggled with shortages of Patriot missiles \u2060in recent months.<\/p>\n

The Russian Defence Ministry, in a Telegram post, said its \u201cmassive attack\u201d using long-range, high-precision air-, land-, and sea-launched weapons and drones hit military and energy facilities, as well as airports in Kyiv \u200cand \u200cother \u200blocations.<\/p>\n

Moscow said the attacks were retaliation for Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia. Kyiv, which has stepped up strikes in recent weeks on Russia\u2019s domestic fuel supply, said it had hit an oil refinery overnight in the Russian region of Nizhny Novgorod, where the governor reported one person killed in a strike on an industrial facility.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin \u2060said Russian military commanders briefed president Vladimir Putin about the Russian attacks, adding that Moscow would \u200bcontinue to increase pressure on Ukraine to achieve its war aims.<\/p>\n

Kyiv mayor \u200bVitali Klitschko announced a day of mourning in Kyiv for Friday. He said that damage was recorded across the entire city of about three million people, with some buildings heavily damaged.<\/p>\n

Katarina Mathernova, the EU ambassador to Ukraine, said \u201cRussia \u200cunleashed hell on Kyiv\u201d overnight, and had struck accommodation used by diplomatic personnel. \u200bDiplomats were unharmed, but their belongings were damaged in the fire that engulfed the building, she said.<\/p>\n

Foreign minister Andrii Sybiha called on Ukraine\u2019s allies to strengthen the country\u2019s air defences following what he described as a \u201cnight of horror\u201d in Kyiv, urging partners not to delay decisions on supplying air defence systems and missiles.<\/p>\n

Emergency services were sifting through the rubble of what used to be a nine-storey building on the left bankof the \u2060Dnipro River that bisects the city as the sun rose and fires flared up around it. <\/p>\n

\"SmokeSmoke rises after a Russian strike on Kyiv. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky\/AP <\/p>\n

City \u2060officials said that more than 90 people, including children, \u200bparamedics and drivers at an ambulance station, were wounded and that some people were still trapped inside damaged residential buildings.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur house is on fire. Oleg was pulling our neighbour out of the burning house, while I was phoning all the emergency services during the explosions,\u201d Iryna Plekhova, a Kyiv resident, said on Facebook, posting a picture of a half-destroyed apartment building with no windows.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do not have an apartment any more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Damage was recorded in 30 locations across the city, mainly in residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, according to interior minister Ihor Klymenko.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian emergency service said it deployed nearly 500 personnel and 100 units of specialised vehicles, including a helicopter, to deal with the aftermath of the attack.<\/p>\n

The National Institute of Biochemistry was among many buildings damaged: its state-of-the-art biochemistry laboratory and other offices were gutted during the attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a catastrophe for medical and biological science of Ukraine,\u201d biologist Yurii Danylovych told Reuters, saying the lab housed rare equipment.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s neighbour Poland, a Nato and EU member, briefly scrambled fighter jets as a preventive measure. Finland also briefly issued a temporary aviation restriction zone in the eastern Gulf of Finland, its defence forces said.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople react at the site of a Russian missile strike that hit a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photograph: Efrem Lukatsky\/AP <\/p>\n

After years in which Ukraine bore the brunt of relentless long-range attacks from Russia, Kyiv has intensified its own strikes \u200cdeeper into Russian territory in recent months, mainly hitting \u2060energy targets. That has triggered a fuel crisis in Russia, forcing the world\u2019s third-biggest oil producer to import gasoline from as far away as India.<\/p>\n

Russia has responded with a stepped-up air campaign against Ukrainian cities, last month hitting a thousand-year-old Kyiv cathedral foundational to the Orthodox faith in both countries.<\/p>\n

Kaja Kallas, the EU\u2019s foreign policy chief, said only sustained military support for Ukraine and \u200cincreased pressure on Moscow could help stop Russian attacks.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday, I will propose to sanction more entities supporting Russia\u2019s military-industrial complex in response to the strikes,\u201d she said in a post on X. \u201cThe more Moscow attacks civilians, the more sanctions must be imposed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zelenskiy has proposed talks \u200bwith Putin to end the more than four-year-old war, an offer the Kremlin leader has rejected. \u2013 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles at Ukraine\u2019s capital \u200cKyiv early on Thursday morning, tearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[41],"tags":[44329,2117,643,68733,9,10,834,238510,3914,9778,13,14,6,135,690,11,12,15,16,241390,73864,4981,12440,5,4467,2645,550,176578,7,8,551,112255,1545,65,66,67],"class_list":["post-565316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-babies","tag-baby","tag-birth","tag-bombardment","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-child","tag-childbearing","tag-children","tag-doctor","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-health","tag-hospital","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-maternal","tag-maternity","tag-mom","tag-mother","tag-news","tag-parent","tag-pregnancy","tag-russia","tag-russians","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainians","tag-war","tag-world","tag-world-news","tag-worldnews"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116850902789477403","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}