By Valentyn Ogirenko, Gleb Garanich and Jekaterina Golubkova
KYIV, July 2 (Reuters) – Russian forces attacked the Ukrainian capital Kyiv on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding more than 50, as drones and missiles struck residential buildings in what Russia said was a retaliation for recent attacks on its civil infrastructure.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had earlier warned of a possible overnight attack and said he was cutting short his visit to Dublin for the start of Ireland’s six-month term in the rotating presidency of the EU.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, writing on Telegram, said 10 people were killed, while damage included six floors of an apartment building that had partially collapsed after a direct hit from a Russian projectile.
Reuters video footage showed emergency services working through the rubble of what used to be a nine-storey building as the sun was rising over Kyiv and as fires flared up around the city.
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the capital’s military administration, said 56 people, including two children, were injured and three dozen locations across the city had been damaged in the attacks.
“The enemy has once again deliberately targeted residential neighbourhoods and killed civilians. We have sustained extensive damage and a significant number of casualties, including children,” he wrote on Telegram.
In an earlier post, Klitschko said the injured included paramedics and drivers at an ambulance station, and that some people were still trapped inside damaged residential buildings.
Pictures posted online showed a fire burning out of control at the top of a building on the central Shevchenko Boulevard, while elsewhere in the city, windows blew out and cars were destroyed.
Multiple explosions were heard in Kyiv, a Reuters witness said, and authorities in the region surrounding the capital said on Telegram separately there were also casualties there.
People crowded into underground stations carrying children, belongings, tents and pets as air raid alerts were issued for most of Ukraine’s territory overnight in Russia’s worst attack on the country since mid-June.
“Do not delay decisions on air defence for Ukraine! This is our main request to our partners after Kyiv suffered a night of horror,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on X as he visited Japan, a Ukraine ally, on Thursday.
Neighbouring Poland, a NATO and European Union member, briefly scrambled fighter jets on Thursday as a preventive measure before calling those back and saying no airspace violation was recorded. Finland also briefly issued a temporary aviation restriction zone in the eastern Gulf of Finland before lifting it later, its defence forces said on X.
EXCHANGING ATTACKS
Russia’s Defence Ministry, in a Telegram post, said its “massive attack” using long-range, high-precision air-, land-, sea-launched weapons and drones hit military and energy facilities, as well as airports in Kyiv and other locations.
The ministry said it was a retaliation for Ukraine’s attacks on Russian civil infrastructure, without elaborating. Russia downed 327 drones overnight, the ministry said. This number includes drones shot down over Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine.
Zelenskiy has proposed talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the more than four-year-old war that the Kremlin leader has rejected.
Ukraine has recently intensified strikes deeper into the Russian territory, triggering a widespread fuel crisis in the world’s third-biggest oil producer and forcing it to import gasoline from as far away as India.
The governor of the remote Russian region of Novosibirsk, Andrey Travnikov, said on Telegram the fuel crisis was worsening for the area more than 3,000 km (1,860 miles) east of Moscow, and re-fuelling priority would be given to emergency services.
Elsewhere in Russia, one person was killed, four people wounded and an industrial facility damaged in a drone attack on the Nizhny Novgorod region, Governor Gleb Nikitin said on Thursday. The region is home to NORSI oil refinery, one of Russia’s largest.
Governor Alexander Drozdenko of Russia’s northwestern Leningrad region, Putin’s home and where large export and oil refining facilities are located, said on Telegram that Russian forces brought down seven drones on Thursday.
In the Russian Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, a man was killed and his wife injured after a drone hit their home, local authorities said separately on Telegram.
Reuters could not independently verify details of the casualties. Russia and Ukraine say they do not deliberately target civilians.
(Reporting by Valentyn Ogirenko, Gleb Garanich and Alina SmutkoWriting by Jekaterīna Golubkova and Ron Popeski; Editing by Kate Mayberry and Lincoln Feast.)
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