KYIV: Russia launched one of its largest air strikes on Kyiv in over three years of war and struck a maternity ward in the southern city of Odesa in attacks that killed at least three people, officials said on Tuesday.
The overnight strikes followed Russia’s biggest drone assault of the war on Ukraine on Monday and were part of intensified bombardments in what Moscow says is retaliation for attacks by Ukrainian forces on Russia.
The Russian attack also damaged Saint Sophia Cathedral, a Unesco world heritage site located in the historic centre of Kyiv, Ukrainian Culture Minister Mykola Tochytskyi said.
“The enemy struck at the very heart of our identity again,” Tochytskyi wrote on Facebook about the site he called “the soul of all Ukraine”. Loud explosions shook Kyiv and blasts and fires lit up the sky in the early hours of Tuesday morning, leaving palls of heavy smoke over the city, witnesses said. Authorities deployed two firefighting helicopters to douse flames. One person died in the attack on Kyiv, city authorities said.
At least four people were treated in hospital after seven of the capital’s 10 districts were hit, city officials said. “Today was one of the largest attacks on Kyiv,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said. “Russian missile and Shahed (drone) strikes drown out the efforts of the United States and others around the world to force Russia into peace.” In Kyiv, Kateryna Zaitseva, 38, and her 14-year-old son looked at the rubble in their apartment, which received a direct hit by a drone. The explosion destroyed one room, damaged another and blew in the door of the bathroom in which they were hiding.
Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2025
