Rescuers carry the body of a victim at the site of an airstrike on a nine-storey residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine, 17 June 2025. Photo: EPA-EFE/MAXYM MARUSENKO
The death toll from Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv on Tuesday rose to 23 by Wednesday morning as rescue operations continued overnight, authorities in the Ukrainian capital have said.
Rescuers had retrieved a total of 18 bodies from under the debris of a partially destroyed nine-story apartment block by Wednesday morning, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said, bringing the overall death toll from the attack on the city to 23, with a further 134 people injured.
Rescue operations were expected to continue throughout Wednesday morning, it added. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko had previously declared Wednesday a day of mourning in the city.
According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Russia launched a total of 440 drones and 32 missiles of various types at the country in the attack overnight from Monday to Tuesday, with Kyiv the main target.
A total of 402 of the drones and 29 of the missiles were either intercepted or failed to reach their targets, it said, but strikes were recorded at 10 locations across Ukraine.
Russia’s Defence Ministry on Tuesday confirmed the strikes on Kyiv, claiming it had targeted Ukrainian “military-industrial facilities” in a “coordinated strike using high-precision weapons”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the barrage “one of the most horrific attacks” on Kyiv since Russia launched its full-scale invasion and called on the US, Europe and the rest of the world to respond to it “as a civilised society responds to terrorists”.
Addressing the G7 Summit in Alberta, Canada on Tuesday, Zelensky said Russia had targeted “ordinary people [and] ordinary families in their homes” in the attack and stressed that continued Western support was “a matter of life and death” for people in Ukraine.
He also noted that such large-scale Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities had become increasingly common since Donald Trump took office as US president in January, with Russia feeling emboldened to “ramp up” its strikes on Ukraine as it faced “no new consequences” from the West in return.
“If last year it was shocking to see 100 Shahed drones used in one night, now it’s unusual if fewer than 100 are used in a single strike,” Zelensky said, urging leaders at the summit to persuade Trump to “use the influence he really has [and] force Putin to end this war”.
After Trump left the summit early to focus on the intensifying conflict between Israel and Iran on Tuesday, missing a scheduled meeting with Zelensky, the Ukrainian president also cut short his attendance and returned to Kyiv in the aftermath of Tuesday’s attack, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reported.