Ukraine-Russia war latest: Explosions in Kyiv after huge Russian drone and missile attacks on half of Ukraine

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia used more than 100 missiles and about 100 drones in Monday’s strike on Ukraine.

“A lot of damage in the energy sector,” he said on Telegram.

Zelenskiy called on allies to stick to agreements to supply air defence systems and missiles. He also said that Ukraine and partners should make a joint air defence agreement to shoot down Russian drones and missiles.

The Kremlin said on Monday that there would have to be a Russian response to Ukraine’s incursion into the western Kursk region and that the idea of ceasefire talks with Kyiv was no longer relevant.

Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that such hostile actions could not go without a response.

The Kremlin also said that Moscow and Kyiv had held no ceasefire talks and that the topic of negotiations with Ukraine has “pretty much lost its relevance”.

The Russian military has said it used high-precision weapons to strike important energy infrastructure in Ukraine that supports the military-industrial complex, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff has called on Kyiv’s allies to allow long-range strikes on Russia.

It comes after Moscow’s large-scale attack against Ukraine on Monday morning.

Energy facilities in at least three Ukrainian regions were hit in a massive Russian attack on Monday morning, regional officials said.

Authorities in Zaporizhzhia, Rivne, and Lviv regions said on Telegram that energy infrastructure in their areas came under attack.

Local officials in several other regions reported that energy facilities and critical infrastructure were targeted well.

Ukraine’s air defences shot down approximately 15 missiles and 15 drones targeting the capital of Kyiv during Russia’s overnight attack on Monday, Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kyiv military administration, said via the Telegram messaging app.

Ukraine’s foreign minister called on allies to agree to shoot down Russian drones and missiles over Ukrainian territory after a massive Russian strike on Monday.

Dmytro Kuleba said on X that “agreeing to use partners’ air defence capabilities to shoot down missiles and drones close to their airspace” would help to end Russian attacks on Ukraine sooner.

The incident occurred while Evans was staying at the hotel as part of a six-person team covering the Ukraine war.

My colleague Maroosha Muzaffar reports:

Russia’s Saratov airport lifted flight restrictions today after a Ukrainian drone attack that reportedly caused damage to residential areas and injured a woman.

The attack on Saratov’s regional airport involved Ukrainian drones that were allegedly intercepted and destroyed by Russia’s air defence systems.

The drones were reportedly targeting the airport, but the air defence systems managed to neutralise them before they could cause significant damage, local authorities said.

The debris from the destroyed drones, however, caused damage to a residential area in Saratov and reportedly led to injuries.

The airport imposed flight restrictions during the incident, but these restrictions were lifted later in the day once the situation was under control.

Russian forces unleashed a massive drone and missile barrage on Ukraine early on Monday, and at least three people were reported killed in the attack, which appeared to target energy infrastructure.

The attack began at around midnight and continued after dawn in what appeared to be Russia’s biggest attack against Ukraine in weeks.

According to the Ukrainian air force, there were multiple groups of Russian drones moving towards eastern, northern, southern, and central regions of Ukraine, followed by multiple cruise and ballistic missiles.

Explosions were heard in the capital, Kyiv, and power and water supplies in the city have been disrupted, the city’s mayor, Vitalii Klitschko, said.

Another person was killed in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where the attack sparked multiple fires, regional head Serhii Lysak said. One person was rescued from under the rubble, he said.

One person was also killed in the south-eastern, partially occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, regional head Ivan Fedorov said. He said an infrastructure facility was hit and caught fire.

In the southern Mykolaiv region, three people were injured, regional head Vitalii Kim reported. He also urged local residents to use “points of invincibility” in the region.

In the outlying Kyiv region, one person was injured in an attack that hit unspecified infrastructure objects and residential houses, regional head Ruslan Kravchenko said.

Ukraine’s private energy company, DTEK, introduced emergency blackouts, saying in an online statement that “energy workers throughout the country work 24/7 to restore light in the homes of Ukrainians”.