Rescue crews are searching for civilians trapped in a collapsed block of flats in Kyiv after one of Russia’s biggest attacks of the war killed 11 people and injured more than 100 on Tuesday.
Questions are also being raised over Ukraine’s shortage of defensive weapons after the country's air defences shot down only 55 per cent of Russia’s barrage of 73 ballistic missiles.
Kyiv is running low on Patriot missiles and other interceptors after US President Donald Trump cut off aid, and with a large number of the munitions having recently been used in the Gulf to defend against Iranian attacks.
However, Ukraine mostly used its own domestically manufactured interceptors to shoot down 92 per cent of the 656 drones launched during an attack that had been predicted by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
“Intelligence warnings regarding Russian strikes remain in force. A massive strike is possible – they have prepared it,” Mr Zelenskyy said days before the attack. Russia’s Foreign Ministry had also threatened that diplomatic missions and international organisations should leave Kyiv “as soon as possible”.
Tuesday's attack was the second of its kind in 10 days and came as Russia continues to suffer significant personnel and territorial losses at the front.
Military observers believe Moscow may be attempting to compensate for these losses through a campaign of terror bombing of built-up areas. Alongside the cruise and ballistic missiles, Russia on Tuesday launched Iranian-designed Shahed drones in a co-ordinated effort to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences.
Moscow's relatively new hypersonic Zircon cruise missiles are believed to have been among the 20 fired at Kyiv.
The human cost of the “massive enemy attack” was devastating in some areas, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He added that residents remain trapped in the rubble of a tower block in the city's Podilskyi district after a Russian missile caused part of the building to collapse.
“Preliminary reports indicate that there are people trapped under the rubble,” said Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, as emergency teams searched the wreckage for survivors.
Four people were killed when the 24-storey building collapsed, and at least 20 were injured.
Officials said six people were killed in Dnipro, including an emergency worker, while 36 were injured.
Images released by Ukraine’s emergency services show firefighters battling blazes at heavily damaged residential buildings. In one neighbourhood, shock waves from a missile strike ripped windows and facades from homes.
Russia’s attack may also be retaliation for Ukraine’s increasingly successful long-range strikes, with Mr Zelenskyy saying Kyiv has struck 15 Russian oil refineries this year, knocking 40 per cent of its refining capacity.
But Tuesday's barrage is expected to intensify debate over the supply of advanced interceptors to Ukraine. The US and its allies are believed to have fired more than 1,200 Patriot missiles during the Iran war, leaving only about 400 in American stockpiles that were already under pressure more than four years into Russia's war on Ukraine.
