Waves of Russian missiles and strike drones pummeled Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities overnight on July 1-2, just hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia was preparing another large-scale attack against Ukraine.
Ten people have been killed and at least 34 others injured in the attack, according to reports from Kyiv City Military Administration Head Tymur Tkachenko and Mayor Vitali Klitschko. Thirty-two of the injured people have been hospitalized.
Russia launched dozens of cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv during the assault, which also involved mass drone strikes across multiple regions.
The attack destroyed residential buildings, damaged a hotel in central Kyiv, and left multistory buildings in flames. As of 5:00 a.m. local time, officials had recorded damage in at least 28 locations, most of them residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.
“The enemy is once again targeting residential areas and killing civilians. We have very serious destruction and a significant number of victims, including children,” Tkachenko said.
Strikes from all directions
Kyiv Independent journalists initially reported loud explosions and air defense activity in the capital at around 9:40 p.m. local time. Shortly afterward, air defense units were reported engaging drones on the outskirts of the city.
The Ukrainian Air Force warned that groups of Russian drones were approaching Kyiv and other cities, including Mykolaiv, Konotop, and Kherson. About an hour later, it reported additional waves of drones moving toward the capital.
Tkachenko warned that drones were attacking the city “from all directions” and said there was a possibility of continued drone activity and a combined attack in the coming days.
Kyiv residents headed to underground metro stations for shelter, with many remaining underground as strikes continued through the night.
The next phase of the assault began in the early hours of July 2, when ballistic missiles — including hypersonic Zircon missiles — began striking the capital.
At 12:45 a.m., Tkachenko warned of a ballistic missile threat against Kyiv, followed about half an hour later by a similar alert from the Air Force. Open-source monitoring channels reported that Russia had launched up to 10 strategic bombers.
Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground reported very loud explosions shortly before 2 a.m., as the Air Force warned that Russian missiles were targeting the capital and other Ukrainian cities. The “unbelievably loud” blasts could be heard even from shelters deep underground.
Kyiv residents take shelter in the Palats Ukraina station of the Kyiv Metro in anticipation of a mass Russian attack overnight on July 1-2, 2026. (The Kyiv Independent)
Fire and rubble in Kyiv
The attack on the capital targeted residential buildings across the city and injured civilians and first responders, local authorities said. Kyiv’s central districts, where museums and universities stand alongside residential neighborhoods, were among the hardest hit.
The State Emergency Service said fires and extensive damage to residential buildings and civilian infrastructure were reported across multiple districts following the overnight assault.
In the Shevchenkivskyi district, fires broke out at a hotel and on the roof of a seven-story residential building. Based on available footage, the hotel appears to be the Cityhotel Residence in central Kyiv. Several other multistory buildings also caught fire.
In the Darnytskyi district, houses and multistory buildings were partially destroyed.
In the Holosiivskyi district, a fire broke out in a 16-story residential building.
In the Pecherskyi district, a nine-story residential building was damaged, and a fire covering 200 square meters broke out between the first and second floors.
Elsewhere, a warehouse caught fire in the Obolonskyi district, two houses were damaged in the Sviatoshynskyi district, and a nine-story residential building was damaged in the Desnianskyi district.
Klitschko also reported the collapse of a nine-story building in the Desnianskyi district, saying rescuers were working to extract people trapped beneath the rubble.
Fires were also reported near residential and administrative buildings in the Solomianskyi district.
Bracing for the onslaught
A Kyiv Independent journalist on the ground reported that a shelter in the city’s Podil district was much more crowded on this night than during previous attacks, with many residents bringing children and pets to wait out the night.
The people gathered in the shelter listened to drones exploding overhead while reading real-time news updates and waiting for Russia’s ballistic missiles to strike.
The Kyiv Independent spoke to Anna Chulinda, 25, who had come to the shelter for the first time since the full-scale war began. Chulinda is from Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv Oblast, which is under constant Russian strikes. She usually weathers the attacks at home, in the hallway.
“It’s not as if I read the news there and think, ‘Oh my God, something’s going to happen’ whenever I’m in Kyiv,” Chulinda said. “I’m the sort of person who thinks it could happen any minute. We have been living in a state of war for four years now, and an attack could happen any day.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m prepared for it, but you carry on living, and you know it could happen at any moment.”
Parents and children shelter in the Podil district of Kyiv overnight on June 1-2, 2026. (The Kyiv Independent)
The heightened alarm in Kyiv followed an urgent warning from President Zelensky earlier in the day. During a press conference with Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin, Zelensky said that Russia was preparing for another mass strike against Ukraine.
“Once or twice a week, there are large-scale air strikes. Today, there is worrying news about preparations for yet another such mass Russian air strike. We have relevant intelligence data,” the president said.
Zelensky’s warning came amid constant Russian strikes on different regions of Ukraine throughout the day, including a glide bomb attack on Kharkiv that killed a 15-year-old boy and injured 32 civilians.
The Ukrainian company West Oil Group (WOG) announced that WOG gas stations in Kyiv and the surrounding region would be closed from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. beginning on July 1 due to overnight attack threats.
WOG announced similar restrictions on gas stations in Sumy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson oblasts, as well as some facilities in Poltava Oblast.
Russia falls back on aerial terror
Ukrainians have been bracing for a massive attack in recent days, as Russia has pledged retribution for Ukraine’s drone strikes on Moscow in June. The large-scale attack brought the reality of drone warfare to the Russian capital for the first time, disabling the Moscow Oil Refinery and exacerbating a nationwide fuel shortage.
The attacks on Moscow, combined with Ukraine’s increasingly successful operation against Russian logistics in Crimea, have undermined Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims of battlefield victory — and possibly his grip on power in the Kremlin.
Zelensky has accused Putin of relying on a campaign of large-scale ballistic attacks on Ukrainian cities to make up for Russia’s failures on the battlefield.
Russia has adopted new tactics in its mass strikes on Ukraine, launching more ballistic missiles to exploit Kyiv’s shortage of Patriot air defense systems and focusing on new, more devastating targets.
Russia’s recent mass attacks on Ukraine have not only targeted residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure, but also historic landmarks and cultural heritage sites.
A combined attack against Kyiv on May 24 damaged the National Art Museum, one of the oldest and most important museums in Ukraine. The same attack damaged government buildings, the Kyiv Opera Theater, the Ukrainian House, the Valeriy Lobanovskyi Dynamo Stadium, and the Chornobyl Museum.
Russia struck again on June 15, damaging the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and other cultural institutions in a mass missile attack.