Russia struck cities across Ukraine with a massive barrage of missiles and drones overnight on Tuesday, killing at least 11 people, injuring more than 100, and trapping residents under collapsed buildings in what Ukrainian officials described as one of Moscow's largest assaults in recent months. Air raid warnings sounded across most of the country through the early hours of the morning.

In the capital Kyiv, at least four people were killed and 58 injured, including children, as strikes hit residential buildings across eight districts of the city. A suspected missile hit on a 24-storey apartment block triggered a partial collapse, leaving people feared trapped under the rubble. A nine-storey apartment building was set ablaze by falling debris, and fires broke out near a gas station, a construction site, and a kindergarten. Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged residents to remain in shelters, while the head of the city's military administration, Tymur Tkachenko, confirmed that ballistic missiles had been used. Thousands of people fled into Kyiv's metro stations — Ukraine's sprawling subway system, whose deep platforms have served as shelters throughout the war — some carrying mattresses and personal belongings as explosions reverberated above ground. In Dnipro, a city in central-eastern Ukraine, six people were killed and 36 injured; a second strike hit the scene as first responders arrived, killing one rescuer. Attacks were also reported in Kharkiv in the northeast, Zaporizhzhia in the southeast, and Kherson in the south.

Ukraine's air force reported that Russia fired 73 missiles and 656 drones during the assault, of which 40 missiles and 602 drones were shot down or neutralised. Despite those interceptions, ballistic missiles — which travel faster and at higher altitudes than drones — remain a critical vulnerability in Ukraine's air defences, a gap Ukrainian officials have repeatedly pressed Western allies to help fill.

The attack followed explicit warnings from both sides. President Volodymyr Zelensky had told Ukrainians in his nightly address the previous evening that intelligence pointed to an imminent large-scale strike. Moscow, for its part, last week threatened "systematic strikes" on Ukraine in retaliation for a drone attack on a dormitory in the Russian-held Luhansk region that killed 21 people; Ukraine denied responsibility for that strike and called Russia's threats "shameless blackmail." The Ukrainian military said it had struck a Russian military unit near Starobilsk, not civilians. Ukrainian drones also struck Russian targets overnight, hitting an oil storage facility near Taganrog on the Sea of Azov and a Rosneft refinery in Saratov on the Volga River, causing significant fires.

The strikes come as the war, now in its fifth year since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, shows no sign of moving toward resolution. Diplomatic efforts have made little headway, with the administration of US President Donald Trump largely focused on other regional conflicts. Since a brief ceasefire period expired in May, Russia has launched repeated waves of missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, including an earlier strike on a Kyiv apartment block that killed 24 people. The latest assault underscores the continued danger facing Ukrainian civilians and the mounting pressure on air defence systems that remain stretched across the country.