During the night of 1 to 2 July, Russian forces launched one of the largest attacks on the Ukrainian capital, using almost 500 strike drones and 74 missiles, including 28 ballistic missiles. The attack caused damage at around 130 locations, including about 20 multi-storey residential buildings and private homes.
Buildings belonging to an ambulance service and a medical facility were also hit, along with a logistics centre and energy infrastructure facilities. According to Russian sources cited in the input text, defence industry sites were also destroyed, including Radioniks, which produces electronic components for Flamingo missiles made by Fire Point, Atłon Awia, a drone manufacturer, and Antonov, where drones are assembled.
Overall, 30 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in the attack. The scale of damage reflected the combined use of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles against the capital.
A second strike on Kyiv took place during the night of 5 to 6 July, involving 419 means of air attack, including 29 ballistic missiles. Around 30 residential buildings were destroyed, including multi-storey tower blocks.
Nineteen people were killed under the rubble and more than 60 were wounded. In Vyshneve near Kyiv, an ammunition depot located among residential buildings was hit.
The resulting explosions damaged around 100 houses, killed seven people and wounded 29 others. Several hundred people were evacuated from the area because of the risk of another detonation.
Because of the scale and consequences of the explosion, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy instructed the Security Service of Ukraine to clarify the circumstances of the incident. Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat acknowledged that the hits were the result of a serious shortage of missiles for Patriot air defence systems.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defence minister, also confirmed a critical shortage of missiles capable of countering ballistic missiles. The comments underlined Ukraine’s continuing vulnerability to ballistic threats despite stronger performance against drones and some other types of missiles.
Outside Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia has remained a target of daily attacks and is within range of destructive strikes by guided aerial bombs. A similar situation has continued in Kharkiv, where Russian forces struck with at least seven aerial bombs on 1 July, killing a teenager and wounding more than 30 people.
On 5 July, a drone attack in Kharkiv killed three people and wounded 16 others. In Kherson, drone strikes continued against civilian cars on 30 June and 3 July, public transport on 1 July, when two people were killed and more than a dozen wounded, and administrative buildings on 2 July.
Other targets included Mykolaiv, where drone strikes hit multi-storey residential buildings on 2 and 4 July, wounding 11 people. Sumy was targeted on 4 July, while Dnipro and Odesa were attacked on 4, 5 and 6 July.
According to data published by the Ukrainian Air Force Command, from the evening of 30 June to the morning of 7 July, Russian forces used a total of 1,437 strike drones and decoys. They also launched 155 cruise and ballistic missiles of various types.
Ukrainian air defences either destroyed or neutralised 1,303 such objects during the period. The figures show the scale of the air campaign and the pressure placed on Ukraine’s air and missile defence network.
