Russian Overnight Assault on Kyiv Claims 12 Lives, Including an Indian Citizen

Kyiv: Twelve people, among them an Indian national, lost their lives as Russia unleashed another round of strikes on Ukraine's capital region overnight into Tuesday, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The assault began around 6 pm Monday and combined ballistic and cruise missiles, anti-radar weapons, and a barrage of 218 drones and decoys — roughly a third of them jet-powered — making it the sixth night in a row that Kyiv has come under Russian fire, part of an escalating series of air raid alerts stretching back to the previous week.

Zelenskyy, writing on social media, noted that the bombardment wasn't confined to the capital. Guided bombs and drone strikes had also been hitting Odesa and its surrounding areas since Monday evening. He put the overall toll at 12 dead — including the Indian citizen — and dozens injured, expressing condolences to the families of those killed.

Beyond Kyiv and Odesa, the strikes reached a wide swath of the country, touching Kherson, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Dnipro. A railway depot in Kyiv took a direct hit, killing seven people there. Separately, in Boryspil, four people died and 13 were wounded, while a residential building of five storeys was damaged badly enough that some 50 people had to be moved out.

Ukraine's air defences intercepted or downed 199 of the incoming targets in total — five ballistic missiles and 187 drones — though strikes still landed at 28 different sites, with falling debris from intercepted weapons causing damage at 10 more locations, Zelenskyy said.