Russia, Ukraine trade deadly strikes as drone and missile attacks escalate

Russia and Ukraine traded some of the deadliest drone and missile strikes of the war, with attacks hitting apartment blocks, rescue crews and residential districts across a widening arc of cities and regions.

In Ukraine, Russian strikes killed at least 13 people, including a 12-year-old child in Kyiv. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said 10 people were injured in the capital, among them several medics, and said rescue teams pulled a mother and child from a damaged building. He said a missile hit the sixth floor of an apartment block in Kyiv’s Podil district, while falling debris and fires caused damage in residential areas.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 324 drones and three ballistic missiles overnight starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday, then followed with another 361 drones and 21 missiles over a 13-hour period. Many were intercepted, but some reached nine locations. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the wave struck Kyiv, Dnipro, Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih, Chernihiv, the Donetsk region and Zaporizhzhia, underscoring how the attacks have spread beyond the capital to multiple urban centers and front-line regions.

The scale of the barrage marked another step in an escalating pattern that has become both broader and more lethal. Russia attacked Ukraine with more than 300 drones and missiles on April 15, killing two people and wounding at least seven. That came after a Ukrainian drone strike on April 7 in Russia’s Vladimir region killed a 12-year-old boy and his parents, showing how civilian losses are mounting on both sides as the exchange of strikes deepens.

Russia also reported civilian deaths from a Ukrainian drone attack on its own territory. Local officials said two children, aged 5 and 14, were killed in the Tuapse area on the Black Sea coast, and that residential houses and enterprises were damaged.

The latest exchanges suggest a war that is becoming less contained and more punishing for civilians and infrastructure. The repeated use of large drone salvos and missile waves, and the spread of damage from Kyiv to Tuapse, point to a conflict in which air defenses are under growing strain and the risk of further escalation remains high.