Russia launched a combined missile and drone attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Monday, killing at least nine people and wounding more than 40, according to Ukrainian emergency services. The strikes, which involved ballistic and cruise missiles as well as drones, caused partial collapses of residential buildings in several districts, trapping residents under rubble. The assault occurred just hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly warned that intelligence indicated Moscow was preparing a new massive strike, and days after a similar barrage on Thursday killed 30 people in the capital. The timing placed the attack on the eve of a NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, where the war in Ukraine is set to dominate discussions.

Ukrainian officials described the strikes as deliberately targeting civilian areas. Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, reported that a residential building in the Podilskyi district was partially destroyed, and that people were believed trapped in damaged multi-storey blocks in Darnytsia. “These are residential buildings. Places where people slept and lived their ordinary lives,” he wrote on Telegram. President Zelensky, in a post on X, said the attack’s timing—after US Independence Day and before the NATO summit—was “typical of Putin,” and renewed calls for Western partners to supply more Patriot air defence missiles. Moscow’s defence ministry, in a statement, said it had targeted military and energy facilities in Kyiv and military airfields in other regions, characterising the operation as retaliation for recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. Separately, the Russian-installed governor of Crimea, Mikhail Razvozhayev, reported that a Ukrainian attack on energy infrastructure near Sevastopol had temporarily cut electricity to the city.

The intensifying cycle of long-range strikes reflects a broadening of the conflict’s geographic and strategic scope. According to Western military analysts, Russia’s sustained use of ballistic missiles against urban centres is designed to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences, which Kyiv says are critically short of interceptor missiles for US-made Patriot systems. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, have escalated drone and missile attacks on oil refineries, ports, and military-industrial facilities inside Russia, a campaign that officials in Kyiv describe as aimed at disrupting Moscow’s war financing and logistics. The reciprocal strikes have increased civilian casualties and infrastructure damage on both sides, while diplomatic channels remain largely frozen.

The NATO summit, which begins on Tuesday, is expected to focus on security assistance for Ukraine. A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that President Donald Trump would meet with Zelensky on the sidelines to discuss ending the war, and would subsequently follow up with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House has indicated that Trump’s priority remains brokering a peace agreement, though no concrete proposal has been made public. Zelensky, ahead of the summit, urged allies not to delay deliveries of long-range missiles, warning that any hold-up “means the loss of lives, and it encourages Russia to continue the war.” The dossier remains one of active hostilities, with no ceasefire negotiations currently scheduled.