KYIV — Russia pummeled the Ukrainian capital in a major drone-and-missile assault, the second such attack in less than a month, killing at least four people and wounding dozens. The central city of Dnipro was also hammered, with nine people killed.
The June 2 attack came days after Moscow warned of further strikes on the capital, including against what it called Ukraine’s “decision-making centers” and urged foreign citizens and diplomats to leave the city.
Russia launched 73 missiles and 656 drones overnight, with strikes recorded at 38 locations across Ukraine, primarily targeting Kyiv, the Ukrainian Air Force said on June 2.
According to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, Russia’s combined attack on Kyiv on June 2 killed at least four people and injured 58 others, including children.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned Russia’s deadly attack on the Ukrainian capital and other cities, which killed at least 13 people.
He said that “dozens of residential buildings and other purely civilian infrastructure” were damaged in the attack on Kyiv.
“A large-scale attack and an absolutely clear statement from Russia: If Ukraine is not protected from ballistic and other missile strikes, these attacks will continue,” he wrote in a post on X.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its forces carried out a large-scale strike on June 2 using “long-range precision weapons” in response to what it called “terrorist acts” against targets inside Russia, adding that it hit several military facilities in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
‘Terror Against Ukraine’s Civilians’
Klitschko reported damage to residential buildings, a clinic, a gas station, vehicles, and other infrastructure across several parts of the capital, with numerous fires, building collapses, and power outages.
“Russia continues terror against Ukraine’s civilians,” Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets wrote in a post on X.
“The world must act. These attacks must stop. Every day of delay costs lives.”
Russian forces also attacked the eastern Ukrainian city of Dnipro, killing at least nine people and injuring at least 36 others, including children, according to local authorities.
Emergency services reported six Dnipro residents missing. Among those killed was a rescuer who was responding to the attack.
Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov said that after “Russian monsters” once again struck a densely populated residential area, at least 49 residential buildings were damaged, seven of them virtually destroyed beyond repair.
“Twenty-three people were hospitalized, including a 13-year-old girl. Doctors described her condition as moderate. Three of the injured are in serious condition,” Governor Oleksandr Hanzha wrote in a Telegram post on June 2.
“The Russian attack on the Dnipro cut short the life of a little boy. Rescuers retrieved the body of a child born in 2023 from the rubble of a four-story building damaged by the attack.” he added later in a post on Telegram.
Hanzha also shared images showing extensive damage to a residential neighborhood following the strike.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, Russian drone and ballistic missile attacks overnight on June 2 injured at least six people, including an 11-year-old girl, and caused fires and damage to homes, vehicles, and other buildings, according to Mayor Ihor Terekhov.
Russian Threats Against Kyiv
A day after Moscow pummeled the Kyiv region on May 24 with hundreds of drones and what Russian officials described as a new hypersonic missile, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in a call with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that Moscow was planning to launch “systematic and consistent strikes” against Ukrainian military sites in Kyiv and “relevant decision-making centers.”
Lavrov also advised that US citizens and diplomats should be evacuated from Kyiv.
Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry condemned the Russian warning as “shameless blackmail” intended to intimidate foreign diplomats and international organizations based in Kyiv.
“Russia wants fear. Panic. The isolation of Ukraine,” Katarina Maternova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the European Union, said in a post to Facebook. “It will not work.”
Foreign diplomats also pushed back against the warning.
Russia has justified its increasing threats by citing an attack on a school dormitory in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk in May.
Local officials said more than 20 people were killed in the town of Starobilsk. Russian authorities accused Ukraine of deliberately targeting a civilian site.
Ukrainian military officials said their forces had struck the headquarters of a Russian drone unit and rejected allegations that civilian facilities had been targeted.
