Zelenskyy warns of new Russian air assault as U.S. issues alert

Zelenskyy said Ukraine received intelligence that Russia was preparing another assault with drones and missiles, and the warning landed as the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv told Americans to be ready to shelter immediately if an air alert was announced. The embassy’s alert, issued on Saturday, May 23, signaled a potentially significant strike within 24 hours, a reminder that the danger to Ukrainian cities can sharpen fast and that civilian survival still depends on racing for cover before impact.

The immediate backdrop was already punishing. On May 26, the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched more than 100 drones and two ballistic missiles overnight. That followed a stretch of heavy aerial attacks in mid-May involving hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, part of a pattern Ukrainian officials say has pushed Kyiv and other cities into nearly constant air-defense posture. Each wave forces air defenders to choose between conserving scarce interceptors and spending them to stop the next incoming salvo.

The most punishing warning came over the weekend of May 24 and 25, when Zelenskyy said Russia used the hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile in a mass attack on Kyiv. The strike killed at least two people in Kyiv and injured 83 across Ukraine. In the capital alone, more than 80 people were wounded, including three children, and the National Art Museum of Ukraine was damaged by blast pressure, though its collection was not harmed.

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry dismissed Moscow’s threat to hit Kyiv especially hard from the air as bringing nothing new, a sign of how routine the warnings have become even as the damage worsens. But the pattern is not routine for families spending nights in shelters or for air-defense crews trying to blunt larger and more frequent attacks. What the latest intelligence alert exposes is a war entering another phase, one in which Russia’s strategy leans on saturation, psychological pressure and the steady erosion of civilian safety.

For Ukrainians in Kyiv, the signal is stark: the next missile or drone wave may arrive with little warning, and the cost of delay can be measured in lives, injuries and damaged homes, schools and cultural sites.