KYIV -- Russia launched a major missile and drone attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region early on July 6, blasting residential buildings and killing at least 23 people, injuring close to 100, hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of an impending Russian strike.
Ukraine, meanwhile, said it had struck Russia's largest oil refinery about 2,500 kilometers from the border in one of its deepest attacks since the start of Moscow's full-scale invasion.
Multiple loud explosions and air raid sirens were heard in the early morning hours in the Ukrainian capital, witnesses said, with cities throughout the country also reporting alerts against incoming projectiles.
"These are residential buildings. Places where people slept, lived their normal lives," Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's military administration, wrote on Telegram.
As of late afternoon, the death toll in Kyiv had risen to 16 and at least seven had been killed in the surrounding region, according to Ukrainian officials. More than 90 people have been injured.
A Kyiv resident whose mother was injured when a residential building was hit during the attack told RFE/RL it was the second time the building had been struck in a month.
"We had just gotten the windows replaced, and now it's happened again," she said.
"This is just horrible. There are so many children here," she told RFE/RL outside the damaged building while rescuers helped people out of the rubble.
"There was an explosion, and we were in the apartment hiding in a storage room. After the blast, there was heavy smoke, and we slowly made our way down the stairs," Tetyana, a woman who survived the attack, told Current Time.
"We were coming down almost blindly. When we got outside, there was a second explosion; we ended up lying under a car, and then somehow ran to a shelter," she added, hugging her cat, which rescuers had brought down from the ninth floor.
"It's very hard. I have no words. I've been left without a home," 21-year-old Oleksandra, who also lives on the ninth floor of a building that was hit, told Current Time.
At the moment of the explosion, she was with her mother and her cats, she said, adding that they had also survived the attack.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko visited the site of a damaged residential building on the morning of July 6.
"We do not rule out that there may still be people under the rubble," he told Current Time, adding that "unfortunately, we can say that children are among the dead."
"Another [act of] genocide by Russia -- there is no other way to describe it, when homes -- civilian homes -- are destroyed and civilians are killed," he said.
Moscow launched 68 missiles and 351 drones at Ukraine overnight, including hypersonic, ballistic, and cruise missiles, Ukraine's Air Force said on July 6.
Ukrainian air defenses failed to shoot down a single ballistic missile during the attack, although they claimed they had downed almost all cruise missiles.
Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told Ukrainian media that the main problem is a shortage of interceptor missiles for Patriot air defense systems. He emphasized that the Russian army took advantage of the shortage and attacked Kyiv, relying mostly on ballistic strikes.
Zelenskyy condemned the attack, calling on partners in Europe and the United States to boost their support for Ukraine's air defenses.
"It is critically important that the world -- first and foremost the United States and our European partners -- come out of the NATO Summit in Ankara with strong decisions in support of our air defense, and thus the protection of ordinary people's lives," he wrote in a post on X.
"As long as Patriot missiles remain in our allies' stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep 'vanquishing' residential buildings. The United States and Europe have enough strength to stop this terror," he added.
In his daily video statement on July 6, Zelenskyy went even further claiming his country is lacking sufficient self-defense capabilities because of a licensing issue with the US.
"Had Ukraine obtained licenses from America to produce Patriots, our output would suffice to protect Ukraine and help our partners in need," Zelenskyy said.
The attack comes two days after US President Donald Trump held separate phone conversations with Zelenskyy and Russia's Vladimir Putin, pressing Washington’s effort to position itself as the key mediator in a conflict.
The strikes also come just ahead of a NATO summit in Ankara, where Zelenskyy is scheduled to meet with Trump on the sidelines of the event as he seeks to keep the US engaged in supporting his country in its battle against Russia’s full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.
Russia's military said on July 6 that the assault was in response to "terrorist attacks" against Russian "civilian infrastructure."
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office at the White house on July 6, US President Donald Trump said the end of the war is "much closer than people realize."
"I think [Putin] does feel pressure. He wants to end this, and Ukraine wants to end this, and we are negotiating, and we'll see if we can stop it. It's a terrible situation," Trump said.
It was unclear what negotiations Trump was referring to. US-brokered efforts to negotiate a peace have ground to a halt, as the White House has focused on the war against Iran.
Zelenskyy Warns Of Attack
On July 5, Zelenskyy warned that Ukrainian intelligence indicated Russia was preparing a new massive strike.
"This is typical of Putin: Right after America's Independence Day and before the NATO Summit in Ankara. Russia wants to bring more evil and kill people," Zelenskyy wrote in a Facebook post.
Russia has stepped up its attacks on Ukrainian civilian areas in recent weeks as the peace process has stalled, with special emphasis on the capital.
Ukrainian officials said at least 30 people were killed and scores of others wounded in the large-scale attack on Kyiv on July 2, which caused fires and extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and residential buildings.
The scale of that assault drew swift condemnation from lawmakers in Washington.
Representative Joe Wilson of South Carolina, a longtime Republican backer of US support for Ukraine, called the strikes further proof that the Kremlin is faltering militarily.
"This horrible war crime is yet more evidence that Russia is badly losing its war," Wilson told RFE/RL. "The USA and its allies should do even more of what it's doing. The strategy is working. Russia is losing."
Ukraine Hits Omsk Refinery
Ukraine continued its widening long-range drone campaign on July 6, saying it struck Russia's largest oil refinery in the western Siberian city of Omsk, about 2,500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
It was one of Kyiv's deepest strikes inside Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Ukraine's General Staff said the attack sparked a fire at the refinery, which is owned by Gazprom Neft and is capable of processing more than 20 million metric tons of crude oil annually. The extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
Ukraine's military said its forces also struck oil refineries in Russia's Yaroslavl and Leningrad regions, as well as an oil products terminal in Kerch, on the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.
Ukraine's Security Service said it and other defense forces struck multiple military targets in occupied Crimea, including aircraft hangars, an air defense system, and fuel storage facilities, in overnight drone attacks.
Ukraine's drone forces commander, Robert Brovdi, reported that Ukrainian forces also struck two vessels in the Sea of Azov from Russia's so-called "shadow fleet" of tankers used to evade sanctions on Russian oil exports.
He said each was carrying about 7,000 tons of fuel from the Russian port of Taganrog to Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Sevastopol Blackout
Sevastopol, a city of some 500,000 people in Crimea was left without electricity on July 6 after a Ukrainian attack on energy infrastructure, authorities said.
"As a result of an enemy attack on energy infrastructure outside Sevastopol, our city was temporarily left without power supply," Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Moscow-installed head of the local administration, wrote on Telegram.
A drone campaign by Ukraine has led to rolling blackouts and widespread fuel shortages as well as soaring black market prices on the peninsula.
Kyiv has launched an effort to isolate Crimea, targeting fuel trucks, bridges, and other infrastructure sites.
Russia authorities have suspended fuel sales to private individuals and businesses in Crimea amid a severe fuel shortage. Residents have reported empty shelves in grocery stores and purchase limits on a number of basic goods.
