{"id":1519825,"date":"2026-07-02T08:29:31","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T13:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1519825"},"modified":"2026-07-02T08:31:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T13:31:14","slug":"a-major-russian-attack-kills-20-in-kyiv-as-ukrainian-strikes-batter-moscows-oil-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/?p=1519825","title":{"rendered":"A major Russian attack kills 20 in Kyiv as Ukrainian strikes batter Moscow’s oil sector"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
A woman looks at an apartment building burning after a Russian missile attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo\/Danylo Antoniuk)<\/figcaption><\/figure>KYIV, Ukraine (AP) \u2014 Russia hammered Kyiv in an 11-hour drone and missile attack overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 20 civilians in the city and injuring scores more in what Moscow said was retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.<\/p>\n

Loud explosions shook the Ukrainian capital for hours during the night, with many people sheltering in subway stations after authorities issued air raid warnings. Emergency crews were still digging through the rubble of collapsed and charred apartment buildings in search of victims as dawn broke.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s Defense Ministry said in a statement that the deadly bombardment was in response to Ukraine\u2019s long-range strikes that have caused severe fuel shortages and put pressure on President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s increasingly frequent and large-scale attacks \u2014 described by Zelenskyy as a 40-day blitz \u2014 have especially targeted oil refineries, causing a fuel crisis that has frustrated Russians, more than four years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian officials say they are trying to force Putin to the negotiating table, but so far Moscow’s response has been to hit back.<\/p>\n

Diplomatic efforts to end the war, most recently by the Trump administration, haven\u2019t produced results. Putin thinks that time is on his side, that Western support will peter out and that Ukraine\u2019s resistance will eventually collapse under pressure from strategic bombing, Western analysts say.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s top diplomat says it was a ‘night of horror\u2019 in Kyiv<\/strong><\/p>\n

The attack killed 20 people in Kyiv, according to Kyiv city administration head Tymur Tkachenko. More than 90 others were injured, according to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko.<\/p>\n

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said it was a \u201cnight of horror\u201d in the capital.<\/p>\n

Damage was recorded in 30 locations across the city, mainly residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Some 20 residential buildings were damaged, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said.<\/p>\n

Flashes from exploding drones and missiles lit up the night, and loud booms echoed through Kyiv. Tracers from air defense fire streaked through the air as a huge pall of black smoke rose into the sky.<\/p>\n

Kyiv resident Serhii Budko said three or four ballistic missiles hit his district of the city. \u201cWe were inside the shelter and felt the shelter shaking \u2014 the ceiling and floor, everything,\u201d the 24-year-old told The Associated Press.<\/p>\n

In Kyiv’s Desnianskyi district, people were trapped inside a damaged nine-story residential building, and in the Darnytskyi district six levels of a nine-story building collapsed.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s General Staff chief Gen. Valery Gerasimov reported the results of the \u201cmassive retaliatory strike\u201d to Putin, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.<\/p>\n

The bombardment was \u201cexclusively against military or military-linked targets,\u201d Peskov said.<\/p>\n

Russia’s aerial attacks on Ukraine have repeatedly hit civilian areas. More than 16,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the United Nations.<\/p>\n

Sybiha said in April that domestic production meets up to 75% of Ukraine\u2019s military needs and accounts for up to 95% of long-range strikes against Russia. The location of the factories making those weapons is secret.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, in Ukraine\u2019s central Dnipropetrovsk region a Russian guided bomb strike killed a 7-year-old girl and wounded four other people, including an 11-year-old girl, all members of the same family, regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian officials urge countries to provide more air defenses<\/strong><\/p>\n

The attack used \u201chigh-precision long-range weapons\u201d and drones on \u201cmilitary industry facilities and fuel and energy complexes in Kyiv and the Kyiv region, as well as military airfield infrastructure in four other regions of Ukraine,\u201d the Russian Defense Ministry\u2019s statement said.<\/p>\n

It published a list of targets it said the barrage hit, mostly plants manufacturing and assembling Ukrainian drones, missiles and components.<\/p>\n

Russia fired 74 missiles, 24 of them ballistic, and 496 drones of various types in the attack, Ukraine\u2019s air force said.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s air defenses have improved throughout the war, especially in countering Russian drones. But ballistic missiles are harder to stop, and Ukrainian officials have repeatedly pleaded with partner countries to supply more Patriot missile systems that offer the best protection.<\/p>\n

Sybiha urged countries not to delay decisions on supplying air defense systems and missiles.<\/p>\n

He rejected any Russian attempts to justify the strikes as retaliation for Ukraine\u2019s long-range attacks, saying Ukraine was exercising its right to self-defense under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter while Russia remained the aggressor.<\/p>\n

Sybiha said on X that the death toll may rise as rescue teams continue their work.<\/p>\n

Ukraine attacks another Russian oil refinery<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ukrainian forces struck one of Russia\u2019s largest oil refineries overnight in the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, starting a fire, Ukraine’s General Staff said.<\/p>\n

Also, Ukrainian forces struck a railway bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region, it said. The bridge was used by Russian forces to transport personnel, weapons and military supplies, according to the General Staff.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s recent success with drone strikes that keep Russian troops pinned down on the front line, disrupt Russian supply lines in the rear and damage oil facilities have brought a significant change in the war, Western analysts say.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia\u2019s spring-summer 2026 offensive has failed to achieve operationally significant gains thus far, and Russian forces\u2019 rate of advance in June 2026 (was) a fraction of the rate of advance that Russian forces achieved in June 2025,\u201d the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an assessment late Wednesday.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow the AP\u2019s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/russia-ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Russia hammered Kyiv in an 11-hour drone and missile attack overnight into Thursday morning, killing at least 20 civilians in the city and injuring scores more in what Moscow said was retaliation for Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1519844,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1502,1504],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1519825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-abc-heads","category-abc-world-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-07-04 08:27:37","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1519825"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1519843,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1519825\/revisions\/1519843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1519825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1519825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1519825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}