‘Night Of Horror’: Major Russian Attack Kills 20 In Kyiv As Ukraine Keeps Striking Moscow’s Oil Sector

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia attacked Kiev with an 11-hour drone and missile strike into Thursday morning, killing at least 20 civilians in the city and wounding scores in what Moscow called retaliation. Attack on Russian oil facilities from Ukraine.

Kiev Metro said violent explosions shook Ukraine’s capital, where more than 50,000 people took shelter in metro stations after authorities warned of air raids. As dawn broke, emergency crews were still digging through the rubble of collapsed and burned apartment buildings to find victims.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement that the deadly bombardment was carried out in response to long-range attacks by Ukraine. serious fuel shortage And put pressure on About President Vladimir Putin.

Ukraine’s increasingly frequent and large-scale attacks are described by Zelenskyy as follows: 40 day lightning – They specifically targeted oil refineries, causing a fuel crisis that frustrated the Russians.

More than four years later Large-scale occupation of Moscow Analysts and Western officials say neighboring Ukraine’s technological advances in drone engineering have given it an advantage in recent months. They say attacks on supply routes behind the front line have made the Russian army lose momentum on the battlefield and make its advance slow and costly.

Kiev forces have specifically targeted supplies to Crimea, triggering the Black Sea peninsula’s worst fuel crisis since its illegal annexation by Russia in 2014 and dealing a blow to the Kremlin’s narrative that Moscow is winning the war.

Ukrainian officials say they are trying to get Putin to the negotiating table, but so far Moscow’s response has been to reciprocate.

diplomatic efforts Recent attempts by the Trump administration to end the war have not yielded results. Analysts say Putin thinks time is on his side, that Western support will wane and Ukraine’s resistance will eventually collapse under the pressure of strategic bombing.

According to the head of the Kyiv city administration, Timur Tkachenko, 20 people died in the attack in Kiev. Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said more than 90 people were injured.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said that there was a “night of horror” in the capital. The pre-war population of Kiev was approximately 3 million, but the number of current residents is unknown.

According to the head of the Kiev City Military Administration, Timur Tkachenko, damage was recorded at 30 points throughout the city, mainly to residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. Minister of Internal Affairs Ihor Klymenko said that approximately 20 residences were damaged.

The flashes of exploding drones and missiles lit up the night and loud explosions echoed across Kiev. Traces of anti-aircraft fire left their mark in the air as a huge sheet of black smoke rose into the sky.

Serhii Budko, who lives in Kiev, said three or four ballistic missiles hit his part of the city. Speaking to the Associated Press, the 24-year-old young man said, “We were inside the shelter and we felt that the ceiling, the floor, everything of the shelter was shaking.”

In Kiev’s Desnianskyi district, people were trapped in a damaged nine-storey residential building, and in the Darnytskyi district, six floors of a nine-storey building collapsed.

A 7-year-old girl was killed and four people, including an 11-year-old girl, were injured in a Russian-guided bomb attack in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian General Staff Chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov informed Putin of the results of the “major retaliatory strike.” Peskov said the bombardment was “only directed at military or military-related targets.”

Russian air strikes against Ukraine have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians were killed in the war, according to the United Nations.

In the statement made by the Russian Ministry of Defense, it was stated that “high-precision long-range weapons” and unmanned aerial vehicles were used in the attack to hit weapons factories and energy facilities in and around Kiev and “military airfield infrastructure” in other parts of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired a total of 74 missiles and 496 drones in the attack.

Ukraine’s air defenses have improved throughout the war, especially against Russian drones. But ballistic missiles, which account for roughly a third of all missiles fired overnight, are harder to stop.

Ukrainian foreign minister Sybiha said in April that the countries’ arms factories meet 75% of the army’s needs. But he and other Ukrainian officials have pleaded with partner countries to provide more Patriot systems that provide the best protection against Russian air attacks.

He rejected Russian attempts to justify the attacks as retaliation for Ukraine’s long-range strikes, saying Russia remained the aggressor in this war.

Ukrainian forces hit one of Russia’s largest oil refineries overnight in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, starting a fire, the Ukrainian General Staff said.

It was also stated that Ukrainian forces hit a railway bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region. According to the General Staff, the bridge was used by Russian forces to transport personnel, weapons and military supplies.

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