By Anastasiia Malenko and Vladyslav Smilianets, Reuters
Ukrainian rescuers remove a burnt-out car at the site of an air attack in Kyiv on 31 July, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: OLEKSII FILIPPOV / AFP
Russia launched waves of missile and drone attacks on Kyiv before dawn on Thursday local time, killing at least eight people including a six-year-old boy, and wounding 88 others, Ukrainian officials said.
As the sun rose, emergency crews were putting out fires and cutting through concrete blocks in search for survivors across the capital. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia launched more than 300 drones and eight missiles. "Today the world has once again seen Russia's response to our desire for peace with America and Europe. Therefore, peace without strength is impossible," Zelensky said on the Telegram app.
Russia's Defence Ministry said it targeted and hit Ukrainian military airfields and ammunition depots as well as businesses linked to what it called Kyiv's military-industrial complex.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said nine children were wounded, the largest number hurt in a single night in the city since Russia started its full-scale invasion almost three and a half years ago.
Explosions rocked Kyiv from about midnight onwards and blazes lit up the night sky.
Yurii Kravchuk, 62, stood wrapped in a blanket next to a damaged building, with a bandage around his head. He had heard the missile alert but did not get to a shelter in time, he told Reuters.
"I started waking up my wife and then there was an explosion. My daughter ended up in the hospital," he said.
Russia, which denies targeting civilians, has stepped up air strikes on Ukrainian towns and cities far from the front line of the war in recent months.
Rescued from rubble
At one location, rescuers spent more than three hours getting to a man trapped in rubble by cutting through the wall of a neighbouring apartment, the Ministry of Internal Affairs said. He talked to the emergency services during the operation and was pulled out alive, it added.
A five-month-old baby was among the wounded, with five children hospitalized, the head of city military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, said on national television.
Schools and hospitals were among the buildings damaged across 27 locations in the city, officials said.
"The attack was extremely insidious and deliberately calculated to overload the air defence system," Zelenskiy wrote on X.
He posted a video of burning ruins, saying people were still trapped under the rubble of one partially-ruined residential building as of the morning.
The president said the attacks had killed a six-year-old and the boy's mother, but later edited the post to remove reference to the mother.
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (local time) that the United States would start imposing tariffs and other measures on Russia "10 days from today" if Moscow showed no progress toward ending the conflict. "This is Putin's response to Trump's deadlines," Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said. "The world must respond with a tribunal and maximum pressure."
The air force reported five direct missile hits and 21 drone hits in 12 locations.
Ukrainian air defence units downed 288 drones and three cruise missiles, the air force added.
