World

Russian strikes kill 28 in Kyiv area, exposing Ukraine air-defense shortages

By Valentyn Ogirenko and Vladyslav Smilianets Reuters

Updated July 6, 2026 6:15 PM

An explosion lights up the sky over the city during a Russian missile and drone strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday. At least 28 people were killed in the bombardment of the capital city and the surrounding region. Vladyslav Sodel Reuters

KYIV, Ukraine - Russia hammered Kyiv and the surrounding region with missiles and drones early on Monday, killing at least 28 people and exposing Ukraine’s critical shortage of U.S.-made air-defense interceptors, officials said.

Rescuers were digging bodies from the rubble of a Kyiv high-rise ripped open in the overnight bombardment. The latest attack came on the eve of a NATO summit where U.S. President Donald Trump is due to hold talks with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in a renewed push for peace.

Ukraine’s military was unable to down any of the 23 ballistic missiles fired by Russia, according to air force data, reflecting its increasing vulnerability to Moscow’s strikes as stocks of its prized Patriot missiles run out.

Zelenskyy has pleaded for interceptors - the only weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal that can shoot down ballistic projectiles, whose high velocity and steep flight path make them difficult to stop.

Speaking in his nightly video address, Zelenskyy said it was “simply absurd that, in the modern world, production has still not been scaled up to the level actually required to protect people from ballistic terror.”

He said that Ukraine had the know-how to produce the weapons and if it received U.S. licenses to manufacture U.S. Patriot systems, “our production would be sufficient not only to defend Ukraine but also to assist partners who need them”.

Earlier, the president called for “strong decisions” at the NATO summit in Turkey, which begins on Tuesday, to ensure Ukraine can defend itself. Ukrainian air force data shows air defenses shot down just four of 49 ballistic missiles in July.

“As long as Patriot missiles sit in our allies’ stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep destroying residential buildings,” Zelenskyy said on X. “The U.S. and Europe have the power to stop this terror.”

Ukraine intercepted 37 other missiles and more than 90% of the 351 drones used during Monday’s attack, the air force said.

Search for survivors

At least 18 people were killed in Kyiv, the Emergency Services said on Telegram, as search and rescue operations recovered more bodies as crews worked through the night. Prosecutors said 10 were killed in the wider Kyiv region. Emergency Services reported repeated explosions and many damaged residential buildings in Vyshneve, outside the capital.

The governor of the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region said a drone strike on a filling station killed two people later on Monday.

And in Sumy region on the Russian border, where Moscow wants to broaden a buffer zone, the regional governor said two residents died in separate Russian drone strikes.

In Kyiv, nearly 30 buildings were significantly damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.

A search operation dragged into Monday afternoon as crews combed mountains of rubble and twisted metal in the multi-story building whose top floors had been torn open.

Alyona, 22, was waiting to hear news about her 19-year-old friend Vika, who was missing after the attack.

“We’re sitting here and waiting until they retrieve them .... She’s so kind, only 19 years old. She’s such a kind girl,” Alyona told Reuters as she watched from a nearby playground.

Reuters television footage showed what appeared to be human remains trapped beneath concrete debris on an upper floor of a building.

The bodies of an entire family - two parents and a child - were pulled from rubble there, said Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

Monday’s attack came days after this year’s deadliest strike on Kyiv, which killed 31 people last Thursday.

Russia steps up air war

Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had conducted a “massive” attack on Kyiv and other locations with long-range, high-precision air-, land-, sea-launched weapons and drones.

The ministry also said military and energy facilities were hit in Kyiv and its surrounding region, as well as military airfields in several other Ukrainian regions.

Moscow has escalated an air war this year as its battlefield progress has slowed to a virtual crawl, hampered by Ukrainian long-range attacks on its military logistics and oil industry.

Ukraine has also retaken territory in some areas along the 746-mile frontline, despite Russia encroaching on the strategically important eastern city of Kostiantynivka.

Zelenskyy on Saturday denied a Russian claim that the city had been captured.

Ukraine hits back

Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s largest oil refinery in Omsk, deep in Siberia, on Monday in what would be one of Ukraine’s longest-range attacks of the war, Kyiv’s military said on Monday. Local Russian authorities confirmed the strike.

In a statement, Ukraine’s General Staff said that the strike had caused a fire at the Omsk refinery, located around 1,700 miles from Ukrainian-held territory and close to Russia’s border with Kazakhstan.

Vitaly Khotsenko, governor of the Omsk region, said Ukraine had attacked the refinery and said that Russian air defenses had destroyed most of the drones involved in the strike.

There were no casualties and emergency services were working at the scene, Khotsenko said in a post on the Russian messaging app MAX. It was not immediately clear how much damage the refinery had sustained.

Zelenskyy described the attack as “an important achievement for the Armed Forces of Ukraine ... Siberia, too, is now within reach of Ukrainian precision strikes.”

The Ukrainian defense technology company Fire Point said its upgraded FP-1 drones carried out the attack and described it as a record for strike drones “not only in Ukraine, but worldwide. Prior to this, the Omsk oil refinery had remained out of reach for Ukrainian drones.”

“The Omsk refinery had remained one of only two refineries in the top 10 that had never been hit by Ukrainian drones,” Fire Point CEO Iryna Terekh said in a statement.

“The other is the Angarsk Petrochemical Company in Irkutsk Oblast. Both are beyond the Urals. It was counted on to balance out the fuel crisis after the successful campaign by Ukraine’s Defense Forces.”

Sources told Reuters that the Gazpromneft-owned Omsk refinery processed around 23 million metric tons last year, or around 460,000 barrels per day.

Ukraine has been escalating a campaign of strikes against Russian oil refineries, at times causing acute fuel shortages across the country’s 11 time zones.

Aside from Omsk, Ukraine’s military overnight hit Russia’s Ust-Luga and Vysotsk ports, which handle oil exports on the Baltic Sea, as well as targets in the Kaluga and Yaroslavl regions, local governors said.

In Crimea, which Russia seized and annexed from Ukraine in 2014, one woman was killed in a strike on the port of Kerch, Russian-installed authorities said. Sevastopol, the peninsula’s largest city, suffered a blackout, they said.