Russia launched a “massive” drone and missile strike on Ukraine’s capital and other areas early on Friday, days after Ukraine’s surprise attack on its air bases.
Five people were killed and 80 injured, Ukrainian officials said, with cruise missiles and hundreds of drones launched.
Strikes targeted the capital Kyiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv, as well as Lutsk and Ternopil in the north-west.
Russia said the strikes were in response to “terrorist acts by the Kyiv regime”, saying military sites were targeted.
Moscow also reported downing 174 Ukrainian drones over parts of Russia and occupied Crimea. Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles, it said, were intercepted over the Black Sea.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russia’s defence ministry said its armed forces had “launched a massive strike with high-precision long-range air, sea and ground-based weapons, as well as attack drones” on Thursday night.
The attack came after Putin warned US President Donald Trump he would respond to Ukraine’s recent strikes in several Russian regions.
Late on Friday, Trump told reporters that the Ukrainians had given “Putin a reason to go in and bomb the hell out of them last night”.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov described the war in Ukraine as “existential” for Russia, saying it was an “issue of our national interests, an issue of our security”.
Moscow blamed Ukraine for three bomb attacks on railways in Russia’s western Bryansk and Kursk regions which reportedly killed seven people and injured more than 100 last weekend. Kyiv has not commented on those attacks.
Ukraine did say however that it had carried out its largest long-range drone strikes on at least 40 Russian warplanes at four military bases deep inside Russia last Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 117 drones had been used in Operation Spider’s Web by the SBU security service , striking “34% of [Russia’s] strategic cruise missile carriers”.
Ukrainian officials say Russia’s latest aerial assault included 38 cruise missiles, the kind Ukraine targeted on Sunday.
Ukraine’s state emergencies service DSNS said the three people killed in Kyiv had all been its employees.
One person was killed in Lutsk, and the body of another victim was pulled from the wreckage in Chernihiv late on Friday.
Zelensky said the Russian attack had used more than 400 drones.
“Now is exactly the moment when America, Europe, and everyone around the world can stop this war together by pressuring Russia,” he added.
In a thinly veiled reference to Trump’s apparent unwillingness to put pressure on Russia, he added: “If someone is not applying pressure and is giving the war more time to take lives – that is complicity and accountability.”
Air raid alerts were in place in Kyiv, where a residential building was hit, and the city’s metro system was disrupted after shelling damaged tracks.
Tens of thousands of civilians in the capital spent a restless few hours in underground shelters.
From the centre of the city, prolonged bursts of machine gun fire could be heard as air defences on the outskirts attempted to bring down scores of drones aimed at the capital.
From time to time, the distinctive buzz of drones overhead could also be heard.
Bright flashes of light, sometimes reflected on nearby buildings, would be followed, five or 10 seconds later, by thunderous explosions.
In Ternopil, military chief Vyacheslav Negoda said Friday’s strike had been the “most massive air attack on our region to date”, injuring five people and damaging homes and schools.
EPAEarlier this month, the second round of direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine took place in Istanbul, but ended without a major breakthrough.
Ukrainian negotiators said Russia had rejected an unconditional ceasefire – a key demand of Kyiv and its Western allies, including the US.
The Russian team said they had proposed a two- or three-day truce “in certain areas” of the vast front line, but gave no further details.
Last week, Trump appeared to set a two-week deadline for Putin, threatening to change how the US was responding to Russia if he believed Putin was still “tapping” him along on peace efforts in Ukraine.
The US president has so far not acted on his threat.
