KYIV — A large overnight barrage of Russian missiles and drones struck Ukraine's capital and more than two dozen other locations, killing at least 14 people, Ukrainian officials said Thursday. Emergency crews worked through the morning to pull survivors from damaged buildings and put out fires.
The attack was among the deadliest on Kyiv in recent weeks. It came as international efforts to arrange a ceasefire have repeatedly failed to gain traction. Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and the war has since settled into a grinding pattern: long-range strikes on cities paired with slow-moving fighting along a front line that has barely moved in months.
Ukraine has again asked its allies for more air-defense systems to intercept incoming missiles. Those systems are expensive and in short supply, and Western governments continue to debate how much to send and for how long. Each large strike sharpens that debate, because a city's survival on a given night can depend on whether interceptors are available.
Casualty figures in the hours after an attack are preliminary and often revised upward as rescue work continues. Millions of Ukrainians have fled the country since the invasion, and some have resettled in the United States, including in New England.
Background
Peace talks have stumbled for two years over the same core dispute: Russia's demand to keep territory it has seized, and Ukraine's refusal to accept those lines as permanent. Neither side has shown it can force a decisive win, which is why the war has become one of attrition — measured in months, not battles.
Why it matters: How long allies keep funding Ukraine's defense is an open political question in the US, and the answer shapes whether attacks like this one meet a wall of interceptors or an open sky.
What to watch: Revised casualty counts, and whether the strike shifts the stalled debate over new air-defense shipments.