Russia’s latest drone strikes hit Kyiv, maternity ward in Odesa, Ukraine says

Russia launched another prolonged drone attack on Ukraine, killing one person and damaging swathes of Kyiv and striking a maternity ward in the southern port of Odesa, regional officials said early on Tuesday.

The overnight strikes followed Russia's biggest drone assault on Ukraine on Monday, part of stepped-up operations Moscow said were retaliatory measures for Kyiv's recent brazen attacks in Russia.

At least four people were hospitalised as a result of the hours-long attacks that hit seven of the city's 10 districts, city officials said.

“You can't break Ukrainians with terror,” Andriy Yermak, President Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff, said in a Telegram post after the attacks.

Air raid alerts in Kyiv and most Ukrainian regions lasted five hours until about 5am, according to military data.

“A difficult night for all of us,” Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's military district, said on Telegram.

“Throughout the night, the enemy relentlessly terrorised Kyiv with attack drones. They targeted civilian infrastructure and peaceful residents of the city.”

The attack sparked fires in residential and non-residential neighbourhoods and open space areas, city officials said. Reuters' witnesses heard and saw countless loud explosions shaking the city and lighting the night sky.

Photos and videos posted on Telegram channels showed heavy smoke rising in the darkness in different parts of Kyiv. The scale of the attack was not immediately known.

Moscow has dramatically increased the pace of its attacks on Ukraine after Kyiv's strikes on strategic bombers at airbases inside Russia on June 1. Moscow also blamed Kyiv for bridge explosions on the same day that killed seven and injured scores.

The attacks come despite pressure from US President Donald Trump on the two sides to move towards a resolution on the war. Moscow and Kyiv returned to negotiations for the first time in more than three years, but outside an agreement on the exchange of war prisoners, there has been no tangible progress.

In addition to swarms of drones and missiles launched in recent days, Russia has also been advancing further on the ground along the frontline in eastern Ukraine, claiming on Tuesday to take more territory there.

In the southern port of Odesa, a “massive” overnight drone attack targeted an emergency medical building and a maternity ward and residential buildings, Oleh Kiper, governor of the broader Odesa region, said on Telegram.

A 59-year-old man was killed in the attack on a residential area, and four people were injured, but patients and staff were safely evacuated from the maternity hospital, Kiper said.

He posted photos of broken windows in what looked like a medical facility and of damage to the façade of several buildings.

The two sides have denied targeting civilians in the war, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, most of them Ukrainian.

Reuters