Another mass Russian aerial assault tore across Ukraine into Monday, killing civilians far from the front lines and renewing Kyiv's pleas for more air defenses.
Cities under fire
At least eight people were killed and dozens wounded in the initial hours, Al Jazeera reported, with the toll rising as the morning wore on; the Kyiv Independent reported regional authorities had confirmed at least 15 dead and more than 100 wounded by midday.
In Dnipro, more than 100 kilometers from the front, the regional governor reported at least five killed and dozens wounded — among them a 13-year-old girl — with survivors treated for blast and shrapnel injuries. In Zaporizhzhia province, near the front, officials reported several dead and wounded, including casualties from a strike on a civilian minibus. Strikes also wounded people in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Kherson and Chernihiv regions, regional officials said, with children among the injured.
Scale of the attack
Ukraine's air force said Russia launched more than 100 drones overnight and that air defenses intercepted the majority, with the rest reaching populated areas across multiple regions. The barrage followed a separate assault on Kyiv a day earlier involving ballistic and hypersonic missiles, most of which Ukraine said it shot down.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the "horrific attacks" and again urged Western allies to speed deliveries of air-defense systems — a now-familiar plea as Russia has intensified long-range strikes on Ukrainian cities.
No ceasefire in sight
Moscow gave no public acknowledgment of civilian casualties. The Kremlin reiterated demands unchanged since 2024 — that Ukraine withdraw from four regions Russia claims to have annexed and renounce its bid to join NATO — and President Vladimir Putin has rejected a Ukrainian proposal for a mutual halt to long-range strikes. Ukraine, for its part, said its forces struck Russian oil refineries the same day.
The pattern has defined the war in mid-2026: large Russian drone salvos that test Ukrainian air defenses, paired with precision missiles aimed at urban centers, even as international pressure for negotiations has produced no breakthrough.
