A Russian 12-hour drone and missile strike destroys residential buildings, killing at least four people, including a 12-year-old girl. Image: ITVX.
(The Post News)– Ukraine’s Kyiv suffers one of its worst bombardments in months as NATO ramps up Baltic Sea mission after drone incursions. Four, including a 12-year-old girl, died, and more than 70 were injured after Russia unleashed one of its most ferocious drone and missile attacks on Ukraine over the months. The overnight bombardment, which carried on into Sunday morning, hammered Kyiv and several regions in a salvo that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, denounced as “vile and cowardly.”
Ukraine’s armed forces said Moscow fired close to 600 drones and more than 40 cruise missiles in a barrage that lasted over 12 hours. Air raid sirens sounded across Kyiv as waves of drones came in at dawn, causing fires, leveling streets, and ripping open apartment blocks.
Ukraine Losses and Civilian Casualties
Rescuers in the Solomianskyi neighborhood of the capital pulled residents from a five-story building ripped open by explosions. The dead included 12-year-old Oleksandra, who neighbors said had just returned from Canada to resume school. Her friends left flowers and stuffed toys outside her burned-out apartment. “A fine child. It’s such a shock,” neighbor Liudmyla said.
Among the other victims were a nurse and a patient killed when Kyiv’s Institute of Cardiology was struck. Another body was recovered from debris in the city. The governor of Zaporizhzhia, Ivan Fedorov, reported that three children, two boys aged 11 and 12 and a nine-year-old girl, were among 34 injured in his region. The cities of Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, and Odesa also reported being struck.
Witnesses described scenes of terror. “There was a huge explosion at around 6 am. Everything collapsed on our heads,” 24-year-old Lolita Isakova said. “My neighbor was bleeding, calling out for his wife and daughter. Russia is a terrorist state.” Zelensky vowed to respond, urging Western allies to increase sanctions on Moscow’s oil and gas exports. “This is how Russia shows its true position. Moscow wants to keep fighting and killing,” he posted. “It deserves only the strongest pressure on earth.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed responsibility, saying its “massive” strike targeted military infrastructure, including airfields. But Kyiv authorities said the barrage of attacks largely struck civilian infrastructure and residential houses.
Regional Security Concerns
The fallout spread beyond Ukraine. Poland scrambled fighter jets and closed airspace over parts of its southeast, citing precautionary security measures after strikes near its border. Denmark recorded Russian drone overflights of its military sites for a second consecutive night, after which NATO said it would heighten alert in the Baltic Sea under “Baltic Sentry.”
A NATO spokesman, Colonel Martin O’Donnell, said the alliance would deploy new intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets, and at least one air-defense frigate, in response to the intrusions. Germany also pledged a military contribution to the defense of Denmark at this week’s EU summit in Copenhagen.
There was global condemnation. UK Defence Secretary John Healey said the bombing showed Vladimir Putin was still “committed to war” and vowed Britain would do more to help Kyiv. Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, called the attacks “cold-blooded” and called for fresh EU sanctions. Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, meanwhile, demanded, “We must maximize the cost of further escalation for Russia.”
Despite Moscow’s assurances that it was only hitting military targets, Kyiv officials warned the strikes were part of a broader campaign of terror. “Again, residential buildings and infrastructure are being hit. Again, there is a war against civilians,” said the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak.
As firefighters cleared rubble in Kyiv and Oleksandra’s classmates honoured her memory, Zelenskyy warned Europe that Russia’s ambitions went beyond Ukraine’s borders. “Putin will not wait for the end of the war in Ukraine. He will open some other front. Nobody knows which one,” he said.
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