'Nothing but terror and murder': Russia launches 550 drones, 11 missiles at Kyiv in LARGEST attack since start of Ukraine war

Russia struck Kyiv with drones in an all-night attack, injuring at least 23 people, damaging railway infrastructure and setting buildings and cars on fire throughout the city, authorities in the Ukrainian capital said early on Friday (July 4). Air raid alerts lasted more than eight hours as Russia launched a total of 539 drones and 11 missiles targeting the Ukrainian territory, Ukraine's Air Force said. The attacks were the latest in a series of Russian air strikes on Kyiv that have intensified in recent weeks and included some of the deadliest assaults of the war on the city of three million people. Ukraine's state-owned railway Ukrzaliznytsia, the country's largest carrier, said on Telegram that the attack on Kyiv damaged railway infrastructure in the city, diverting a number of passenger trains and causing delays.

"The main target of the strikes was the capital of Ukraine, the city of Kyiv!" the Air Force said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. Fourteen of the injured were hospitalised, Kyiv's Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. Damage was recorded in six of Kyiv's 10 districts on both sides of the Dnipro River bisecting the city and falling drone debris set a medical facility on fire in the leafy Holosiivskyi district, Klitschko said.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, warned residents to close their windows due to dangerous levels of "combustion products" in the air. "Russia, a terrorist country, has wreaked havoc," Tkachenko wrote on Telegram. "The Russians bring nothing but terror and murder. That is a fact."

Social media videos showed people running to seek shelter, firefighters fighting blazes in the dark and ruined buildings with windows and facades blown out. Ukraine's Air Force said that it had destroyed 478 of the air weapons Russia launched overnight. Enemy airstrikes were recorded in eight locations across the country with nine missiles and 63 drones, it added. Late on Thursday, Russian shelling killed five people in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a key target under Russian attack for months, Ukraine said. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with a full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.

Trump-Putin phone call

The two leaders did not discuss a recent pause in some U.S. weapons shipments to Kyiv during the nearly hour-long conversation, according to a readout provided by Putin aide Yuri Ushakov. US attempts to end Russia's war in Ukraine through diplomacy have largely stalled, and Trump has faced growing calls - including from some Republicans - to increase pressure on Putin to negotiate in earnest. Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday that he hopes to speak with Trump on Friday about the supply of U.S. weapons. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, meanwhile, told reporters in Denmark earlier in the day that he hopes to speak to Trump as soon as Friday about the ongoing pause in some weapons shipments, which was first disclosed earlier this week.

Trump, speaking to reporters as he left Washington for Iowa, said "we haven't" completely paused the weapons flow but blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for sending so many weapons that it risked weakening US defenses. "We're giving weapons, but we've given so many weapons. But we are giving weapons. And we're working with them and trying to help them, but we haven't. You know, Biden emptied out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves," he said.