Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine kills 15, injures 116
[June 17, 2025]
By SAMYA KULLAB and VASILISA STEPANENKO
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment
of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 others while they
slept in their homes, local officials said Tuesday, with the main
barrage centering on the capital Kyiv.
Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people
were killed and 99 others were injured as explosions echoed across the
city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story
residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers
were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble.
Russia fired more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, calling the Kyiv attack “one of the
most terrifying strikes" on the capital.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on Kyiv in recent months and came
after two rounds of direct peace talks failed to make progress on ending
the war, now in its fourth year.
Russia has repeatedly hit civilian areas of Ukraine with missiles and
drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians,
according to the United Nations. Russia says it only attacks military
targets.
Russia has in recent months stepped up its aerial attacks. It launched
almost 500 drones at Ukraine on June 10 in the biggest overnight drone
bombardment of the war. Russia also pounded Kyiv on April 24, killing at
least 12 people in its deadliest assault on the capital in eight months.
The intensified long-range attacks have coincided with a Russian summer
offensive on eastern and northeastern sections of the roughly
1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where Ukraine is short-handed and
needs more military support from its Western partners.
Uncertainty about U.S. policy on the war has fueled doubts about how
much help Kyiv can count on. Zelenskyy was set to meet with U.S.
President Donald Trump in Canada on Tuesday and press him for more help,
but the White House announced Trump would return early to Washington on
Monday night because of tensions in the Mideast.
Ukrainian forces have hit back with their own domestically produced
long-range drones.
The Russian military said it downed 203 Ukrainian drones over 10 Russian
regions between Monday evening and Tuesday morning.
Russian civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia reported briefly halting
flights overnight in and out of all four Moscow airports, as well as the
airports in the cities of Kaluga, Tambov and Nizhny Novgorod, as a
precaution.
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Residents react after a Russian missile hit a multi-storey apartment
during Russia's combined missile and drone air attack in Kyiv,
Ukraine, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
The overnight Russian drone strikes, meanwhile, also struck the
southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa, killing one person and
injuring 17 others, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the regional
administration.
Russian President Vladimir Putin "is doing this simply because he
can afford to continue the war. He wants the war to go on. It is
troubling when the powerful of this world turn a blind eye to it,”
Zelenskyy said.
The almost nine-hour Russian attack delivered “direct hits on
residential buildings," the Kyiv City Military Administration said
in a statement. "Rockets — from the upper floors to the basement,”
it said.
A U.S. citizen was died in the attack after suffering shrapnel
wounds, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko told reporters.
Thirty apartments were destroyed in a single residential block after
it was struck by a ballistic missile, Klymenko said.
“We have 27 locations that were attacked by the enemy. We currently
have over 2,000 people working there, rescuers, police, municipal
services and doctors,” he told reporters at the scene of one of the
attacks.
Olena Lapyshniak, 49, was shaken from the strike that nearly leveled
her apartment building. She heard a whistling sound and then two
explosions that blew out her windows and doors.
“It's horrible, it's scary, in one moment there is no life,” she
said. “There's no military infrastructure here, nothing here,
nothing. It's horrible when people just die at night.”
People were wounded in the city's Sviatoshynskyi and Solomianskyi
districts. Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said fires broke out in two
other city districts as a result of falling debris from drones shot
down by Ukrainian air defenses.
Moscow escalated attacks after Ukraine's Security Service agency
staged an audacious operation targeting war planes in air bases deep
inside Russian territory.
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