KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia sent waves of drones and missiles in an attack on two Ukrainian cities early Tuesday that killed three people and wounded at least thirteen others, Ukrainian officials said.
The attack struck the capital, Kyiv, and the southern port city of Odesa. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in an online statement called the attack on Kyiv “one of the biggest” in the war that has raged for over three years, and said that Moscow’s forces had fired over 315 drones, mostly Shaheds, and seven missiles at Ukraine overnight.
“Russian missile and Shahed strikes are louder than the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace,” Zelenskyy wrote, urging “concrete action” from the U.S. and Europe in response to the attack.
A maternity hospital and residential buildings in the center of the southern port city of Odesa were damaged in the attack, regional head Oleh Kiper said. Two people were killed and nine injured in the city, according to a statement from the regional prosecutor’s office.
An additional victim was found in Kyiv’s Obolon district, regional head Tymur Tkachenko wrote on Telegram.
“Russian strikes are once again hitting not military targets but the lives of ordinary people. This once again shows the true nature of what we are dealing with,” Tkachenko said.
Associated Press journalists heard explosions and the buzzing of drones around the city for hours.
The fresh attacks came a day after Moscow launched almost 500 drones at Ukraine in the biggest overnight drone bombardment in the three-year war. Ukrainian and Western officials have been anticipating a Russian response to Ukraine’s audacious June 1 drone attack on distant Russian air bases.
Russia has been launching a record-breaking number of drones and missiles targeting Ukraine in recent days, despite both sides trading memoranda during direct peace talks in Istanbul on June 2 that set out conditions for a potential ceasefire. However, the inclusion of clauses that both sides see as nonstarters make any quick deal unlikely, and a ceasefire, long sought by Kyiv, remains elusive.
The only tangible outcome of the talks has been in the exchange of prisoners of war, with a swap starting on Monday to release soldiers aged between 18 and 25.
A similar exchange was also announced for the bodies of fallen soldiers held by both sides, although no schedule for that has been released. Asked to comment on the exchange of bodies with Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that it has remained unclear when it could take place and how many bodies of Russian soldiers Ukraine was going to hand over. He again accused Kyiv of dragging its feet on the exchange.
“There is one unarguable fact, we have had trucks with bodies standing ready for it on the border for several days,” he said in a call with reporters.
Plumes of smoke were visible in Kyiv as air defense forces worked to shoot down drones and missiles Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian residents took shelter and slept in metro stations during the hourslong attack. Nina Nosivets, 32, and her 8-month-old son, Levko, were among them.
“I just try not to think about all this, silently curled up like a mouse, wait until it all passes, the attacks. Distract the child somehow because its probably the hardest thing for him to bear,” she said.
Krystyna Semak, a 37-year-old Kyiv resident, said the explosions frightened her and she ran to the metro at 2 a.m. with her rug.
Russia has been launching a record-breaking number of drones and missiles targeting Ukraine while the two countries continue to swap prisoners of war, the only tangible outcome of recent direct peace talks held in Istanbul. A ceasefire, long sought by Kyiv, remains elusive.
In Kyiv, fires broke out in at least four districts after debris from shot down drones fell on the roofs of residential buildings and warehouses, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration.
Vasyl Pesenko, 25, stood in his kitchen, damaged in the attack.
“I was lying in bed, as always hoping that these Shaheds (drones) would fly past me, and I heard that Shahed (that hit the house),” he said. “I thought that it would fly away, but it flew closer and closer and everything blew away.”
The Russian attack sparked 19 fires across Ukraine, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko wrote on Telegram. “Russia must answer for every crime it commits. Until there is justice, there will be no security. For Ukraine. And for the world,” he said.
In Moscow, the Defense Ministry said that a group strike early Tuesday targeted arms plants in Kyiv, as well as military headquarters, troops locations, military air bases and arms depots across Ukraine. “The goals of the strikes have been achieved, all the designated targets have been hit,” it said in a statement.
The death tolls from previous Russian strikes also continued to rise Tuesday. In Kharkiv, rescuers found the body of a person trapped under the rubble of a building that was hit in a drone-and-missile attack Saturday, city mayor Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram. The discovery brings the number of casualties to five, with five more people potentially still trapped under the debris, Terekhov said.
Meanwhile, in the northern city of Sumy, a 17-year-old boy died in the hospital Tuesday morning after being injured in a Russian strike on June 3, acting mayor Artem Kobzar wrote on Telegram. It brings the number killed in the attack to six.
Elsewhere, the Russian Defense Ministry on Tuesday morning reported downing 102 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The drones were downed both over regions on the border with Ukraine and deeper inside Russia, including central Moscow and Leningrad regions, according to the Defense Ministry´s statement.
Because of the drone attack, flights were temporarily restricted in and out of multiple airports across Russia, including all four airports in Moscow and the Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg, the country´s second largest city.
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