KYIV – Russian ballistic missiles struck the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv early on Sunday, setting off fires and wounding at least three civilians, while attacks on other parts of the country later killed at least two people, local officials said.
The strikes came as Ukraine’s successful drone attacks have stalled the Russian army’s advances in an expanded campaign inside Russia that has been causing fuel shortages and piling pressure on Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
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In Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, Kremlin-installed authorities said a Ukrainian drone strike had killed four civilians in the city of Horlivka. According to Ivan Prikhodko, the city’s Russian-appointed mayor, the city had been under fire since the early hours of Sunday.
According to Russia’s defense ministry, Russian forces overnight struck down 133 Ukrainian drones over Russia, the Black Sea and Crimea, the peninsula that Moscow forcibly annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Russian attacks set fire to tower block near Kyiv's center
Blasts rocked Kyiv in the early hours of Sunday, with falling debris sparking a blaze in a tower block near the historic center, according to mayor Vitali Klitschko.
Elsewhere in the city, falling debris set fire to buildings, cars and car parks, Klitschko added. He said three people had been wounded, with one needing hospital treatment.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in his evening address on Friday that intelligence assessments indicated that Russia was preparing missiles for a large attack, saying there were indications that this could happen in the next 48 hours.
Russia’s defense ministry claimed on Sunday that its latest attack on Kyiv had struck sites linked to drone production.
Also Sunday, a drone strike on Kharkiv — Ukraine’s second-largest city in the east — killed one person and wounded at least six others, including two children, mayor Igor Terekhov reported.
In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, a Russian glide bomb killed one man and wounded at least six other people, according to mayor Ivan Fedorov.
Both Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia have been frequent targets for Russian attacks, with Zaporizhzhia — just over 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) from the front line — suffering heavy bombardment in recent months.
The war sees an escalation in tit-for-tat strikes
On Friday, a major Russian strike near Kyiv killed at least 10 people and wounded around 100 others, part of a cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion of its neighbor.
Meanwhile, Finnish President Alexander Stubb claimed on Sunday that “Ukraine’s position is stronger than ever since the war began".
Following a call with his Ukrainian counterpart — and appearing to allude to Kyiv’s recent drone campaign that has struck major Russian energy sites and sought to choke off military supplies — Stubb wrote on X that “continued support from (Ukraine's) partners is critical to keep up the momentum."
Putin calls on Russia's navy to defend ‘shadow fleet’ tankers
Putin said Western attempts to seize Russia-linked oil tankers amounted to “piracy,” and called on the Russian Navy to fight them.
“We must act carefully in line with international maritime law but decisively — just as we must fight piracy and pirates," Putin said Sunday during a speech marking Russia's annual Navy Day.
Moscow is believed to be using a fleet of hundreds of ships, many of them sailing under third-country flags, to ship oil in violation of international sanctions that followed its war on Ukraine.
Last month, armed British forces boarded and detained a sanctioned tanker suspected of being part of this so-called “shadow fleet.” French authorities have also intercepted some of these vessels.
Russia has traditionally marked Navy Day with a major naval parade in and near the city of St. Petersburg, with Putin personally reviewing warships.
This year was the second time in a row the parade had been called off entirely while in 2024, it was scaled down.
A British intelligence update published earlier this month linked the cancellations to “force protection” concerns, citing a successful Ukrainian attack on Jun. 3 against a Russian warship docked near St. Petersburg.
Romania shoots down another suspected Russian drone
Romania intercepted a suspected Russian drone in its airspace on Sunday, Romanian President Nicușor Dan said — the third such incursion in three days above the Eastern European nation that borders Ukraine and is a member of both NATO and the European Union.
Dan called the incidents “inadmissible and intolerable" in a post on X and added that authorities found one of the earlier downed drones appears to be “a Shahed type, used by the Russian Federation in the war of aggression against Ukraine.”
NATO said two Romanian F-16 fighter jets scrambled from Fetești airbase, under NATO's operational command, in the morning hours and downed the drone over the Black Sea.
A series of drone incursions by Russia and Ukraine have hit Romania and other NATO members since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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Associated Press writer Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.