By VASILISA STEPANENKO and HANNA ARHIROVA
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia pounded Ukraine’s capital with another major missile and drone attack overnight into Thursday, killing at least two people and causing fires across Kyiv a day after the heaviest drone attack so far in the more than three-year war, Ukrainian officials said.
In another tense and sleepless night for Kyiv residents, with many of them dashing in the dark with children, pets and blankets to the protection of subway stations, at least 22 people were wounded, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv Regional Administration.
The night was punctuated with the chilling whine of approaching drones that slammed into residential areas, exploded and sent balls of orange flames into the dark during the 10-hour barrage. Russia fired 397 Shahed and decoy drones as well as cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv and five other regions, authorities said.
“This is a clear escalation of Russian terror: hundreds of Shahed drones every night, constant missile strikes, massive attacks on Ukrainian cities,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.
June brought the highest monthly civilian casualties of the war, with 232 people killed and 1,343 wounded, the U.N. human rights mission in Ukraine said Thursday, as Russia launched 10 times more drones and missiles than the same month last year.
At least 13,580 civilians, including 716 children, have been killed and more than 34,000 wounded since Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor began on Feb. 24, 2022, the U.N. said.
Two rounds of direct peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations have yielded no progress on stopping the fighting. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday there is no date for a possible third round of negotiations.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Thursday that the U.S. and Russia have exchanged new ideas for peace talks after he met with his Russian counterpart, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in Malaysia on Thursday.
Russia aims to sap Ukrainian morale
Russia has recently sought to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses with major attacks that include increasing numbers of decoy drones. The previous night, it fired more than 700 attack and decoy drones, topping previous nightly barrages for the third time in two weeks.
“The continued increase in the size of strike packages is likely intended to support Russian efforts to degrade Ukrainian morale in the face of constant Russian aggression,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said late Wednesday.
In tandem with the bombardments, Russia’s army has started a new drive to break through parts of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where short-handed Ukrainian forces are under heavy strain at what could prove to be a pivotal period of the war.
“At present, the rate of Russian advance is accelerating and Russia’s summer offensive is likely to put the armed forces of Ukraine under intense pressure,” Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at military think tank RUSI, wrote in an assessment published Wednesday.
The pressure has caused alarm among Ukrainian officials, who are uncertain about continuing vital military aid from the United States and U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy toward Russia.
“Partners need to be faster with investments in weapons production and technology development,” Zelenskyy said Thursday. “We need to be faster with sanctions and put pressure on Russia so that it feels the consequences of its terror.”
Chancellor Friedrich Merz said at a Ukrainian recovery conference in Rome that German officials “stand ready to acquire additional Patriot (air defense) systems from the U.S. and make them available to Ukraine.”
The U.S. last week halted some shipments of weapons, including crucial Patriot systems, to Ukraine amid concerns that its own stockpiles have declined too much.
“The Americans need them themselves in part, but they also have a great many of them,” Merz said.
Meanwhile, the U.K. government announced the delivery to Ukraine of more than 5,000 Thales air defense missiles under a 19-year financing agreement, supported by a 2.5 billion-pound ($3.4 billion) credit guarantee.
Some Ukrainians lose almost everything
In Kyiv, Karyna Holf, 25, was in the living room near the window when she heard a whistling sound from the incoming weapon. Moments later, little was left of the room but debris.
“After such a shock, when you know from your own experience what it’s like to lose everything,” she said. “I don’t even know what comes next. All I have now is a backpack, a phone, a winter coat — that’s it. This is my whole life now.”
Holf said she was grateful to have her parents to turn to, but added, “There are people who have no one at all.”
One Kyiv subway station worker said more than 1,000 people, including 70 children, took refuge there. One of them was 32-year-old Kyiv resident Alina Kalyna.
“The drone attacks a year ago were one thing, and now they’re a completely different thing. We’re exhausted,” she said. “I sleep poorly, I recover poorly, in fact I no longer recover, I am just somehow on a reserve of energy, of which I have a little left, I just somehow live and exist,” Kalyna said.
5,000 drones produced a month
Russia routinely fires more drones in a night than in a whole month a year ago, and analysts say the drone barrages are unlikely to let up.
Russia is now producing more and better drones, including some using artificial intelligence technology, according to the Atlantic Council. Its factories are manufacturing more than 5,000 drones a month, the Washington-based think tank said this week.
“For the first few years of the war following (Russia’s) 2022 invasion, Ukraine’s dynamic tech sector and vibrant startup culture helped keep the country a step ahead of Russia despite the Kremlin’s far greater resources,” the Atlantic Council said of the countries’ drone development. “In recent months, however, it has become increasingly apparent that the initiative has passed to Moscow.”
Ukraine urgently needs more interceptor drones to take down Russia’s Shaheds as well as Patriot missile systems to counter Russian missiles.
The U.S. has resumed deliveries of certain weapons, including 155 mm munitions and precision-guided rockets known as GMLRS, two U.S. officials told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity so that they could provide details that hadn’t been announced publicly. It’s unclear exactly when the weapons started moving.
Ukraine has also invested in drones, developing its own long-range weapons that can hit Russian soil.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that it shot down 14 Ukrainian drones overnight. Two people in the Belgorod region were injured by falling debris, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.
Illia Novikov in Kyiv, and Tara Copp in Washington, contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
A previous version of this story was corrected to show that Karyna Holf is age 25, not 23.