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Russia pounds Ukraine with largest drone attack of war

Flames and smoke billow from buildings during mass Russian strikes on Kyiv
Flames and smoke billow from buildings during mass Russian strikes on Kyiv

Russia has repeatedly struck the Ukrainian capital Kyiv in the largest drone attack of the war, killing one person, injuring at least 23 and damaging buildings across the capital.

The assault came hours after US President Donald Trump spoke to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, according to officials.

Air raid sirens and explosions sounded through the night as Russia launched what Ukraine's air force said was a total of 539 drones and 11 missiles.

Families huddled in underground metro stations for shelter as acrid smoke hung over the city centre.

The head of Kyiv's military administration said that a body had been found in wreckage at one of the sites.

Outside a high-rise apartment block damaged by a drone, residents stood surveying the scene as the clean-up began. Some cried while others looked on silently.

"I woke up to the sound of explosions, first the Shahed drones started buzzing, and then the explosions began," said 40-year-old resident Maria Hilchenko.

"Then people started screaming outside. The explosions from the Shaheds kept coming."

KYIV, UKRAINE - JULY 4: A woman stands amid the rubble of a 5-story residential building in Solomyanskyi district, heavily damaged by a Russian airstrike on July 4, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The Russian army launched a mass strike on Ukraine, using almost 540 drones and more than 10 missiles of various
A woman at what is left of a five-storey residential building in Kyiv

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack "deliberately massive and cynical".

He spoke by phone with Mr Trump earlier and said he agreed with Mr Trump to work to strengthen his country's air defences, as concerns mounted in Kyiv over continued US military aid deliveries.

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Ukrainian foreign minister Andrii Sybiha said that a Chinese component had been found in one of the Shahed drones attacking Kyiv, shortly after China's consulate in the southern city of Odesa suffered minor damage in a separate strike.

"What an irony," Mr Sybiha wrote on social media.

KYIV, UKRAINE - JULY 4: Rubble lies inside apartment at damaged residential building after Russian drone and missile attack on July 4, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Russian army launched a mass strike on Ukraine, using almost 540 drones and more than 10 missiles of various types, most of which were targete
The rubble of an apartment building in Kyiv

Kyiv officials said the attack damaged about 40 apartment blocks, railway infrastructure, five schools and childcare facilities, cafés and many cars in six of Kyiv's ten districts.

Poland said the consular section of its embassy was damaged in central Kyiv, adding that staff were unharmed.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram that 14 of the injured were taken to hospital.

Damage was recorded on both sides of the Dnipro river bisecting the capital and falling drone debris set a medical facility on fire in the Holosiivskyi district, he added.

Russian airstrikes on Kyiv have intensified in recent weeks and included some of the deadliest assaults of the war on the city of three million people.

KYIV, UKRAINE - JULY 4: Smoke from the fire rises above residential apartment buildings after a Russian missile and drone attack on July 4, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The Russian army launched a mass strike on Ukraine, using almost 540 drones and more than 10 missiles of various types, most of which wer
Russia pounded the Ukrainian capital through the night

President Trump said the call with Mr Putin yesterday resulted in no progress on efforts to end the war and Moscow reiterated that it would keep pushing to solve the conflict's "root causes".

The US decision to halt some shipments of critical weapons to Ukraine prompted warnings by Kyiv that the move would weaken its ability to defend against intensifying airstrikes and battlefield advances.

Germany said it is in talks on buying Patriot air defence systems to bridge the gap.

President Zelensky called for increased pressure on Russia to change its "dumb, destructive behaviour".

"For every such strike against people and human life, they must feel appropriate sanctions and other blows to their economy, their revenues, and their infrastructure," he said.

Ukraine's air force said that it destroyed 478 of the weapons that Russia launched overnight.

Airstrikes were recorded in eight locations, with nine missiles and 63 drones, it added.

Social media videos showed people running to seek shelter, firefighters fighting blazes in the dark and ruined buildings.

KYIV, UKRAINE - JULY 4: People take shelter in a bomb shelter during a Russian missile and drone attack on July 4, 2025 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The Russian army launched a mass strike on Ukraine, using almost 540 drones and more than 10 missiles of various types, most of which were targeted at the Ukraini
People take shelter in a bomb shelter during the Russian attacks

Meanwhile, Russian shelling killed five people in and near the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, officials said.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched with its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.

Many more troops are believed to have died on the front line, but neither side releases military casualty figures.