Russia kills 11 in massive missile and drone strike on Kyiv

A residential tower in Kyiv’s Podilskyi district was torn open between the 5th and 9th floors after Russia unleashed another overnight barrage of missiles and drones, killing at least 11 people and injuring at least 46. Emergency crews kept searching the rubble as officials warned the toll could rise.

The strike hit multiple parts of the capital, with additional apartment buildings damaged in the Podilskyi, Obolonskyi, Holosiivskyi and Darnytskyi districts. Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said the attack also damaged non-residential buildings, garages, a warehouse, homes, businesses and other civilian infrastructure. Power outages hit a suburb west of Kyiv, and thousands of residents crowded into metro stations overnight for shelter.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned hours earlier that another large-scale assault was imminent. He later said the timing followed a familiar Russian pattern, coming after U.S. Independence Day and before the NATO summit in Ankara. In Kyiv Oblast, one person was killed and 10 others were injured in communities outside the capital, including Bucha, Vyshhorod, Brovary and Sofiivska Borshchahivka.

Ukraine’s Air Force counted 23 ballistic missiles, 39 cruise missiles, six anti-ship missiles and 351 attack and decoy drones in the July 6 strike. Air defenses shot down 37 missiles and 326 drones, but the barrage collapsed part of the apartment block and scattered damage across the city.

The assault followed a deadlier attack on July 2, when Russia launched 74 missiles and 496 drones at Kyiv. That earlier strike killed 31 people and injured 102, and rescue work ended on July 4 after the last victim was recovered from a partially collapsed apartment building. Vitali Klitschko called it the war’s “most massive” attack on the capital.