Russia launched a massive, coordinated wave of missiles and strike drones against Kyiv overnight, killing at least 30 people and injuring 91 others, Ukrainian officials said Thursday.

The attack—described by Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko as the most massive aerial assault on the capital since the start of the war—came just hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky publicly warned that intelligence indicated Moscow was preparing a large-scale strike.

According to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, the death toll is expected to rise as search and rescue teams clear debris from dozens of struck locations.

The state emergency service (DSNS) confirmed that primary rescue operations are focused on the Darnytskyi district, where a multistory residential building partially collapsed. Among the confirmed injured across the city are at least two children.

Damages and fires were logged at more than 30 locations across all administrative districts of the capital. According to municipal and corporate statements, the strikes hit a historic early 20th-century hotel building, identified as the Cityhotel Residence, in the central district, as well as an ambulance station where six emergency service workers were injured.

The bombardment also struck a 16-story apartment building in the Holosiivskyi district, a 9-story building in the Pecherskyi district, and critical energy infrastructure belonging to DTEK, Ukraine's largest private power company, triggering rolling blackouts.

Furthermore, the attacks hit equipment belonging to major internet provider Utels, cutting connectivity to 500,000 homes and businesses, and a central distribution warehouse for the BookChef publishing house in the surrounding Kyiv Oblast, destroying an estimated 800,000 books.

The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia deployed a total of 74 missiles and 496 long-range strike drones during the overnight operation.

Air defense units intercepted or suppressed 48 missiles and 476 drones. However, 25 ballistic missiles and 12 drones penetrated the defense perimeter, striking 33 distinct locations.

Air Force spokesperson Yurii Ihnat noted that 28 of the incoming projectiles targeting Kyiv were ballistic missiles—including hypersonic Zircon missiles—representing a record high for a single engagement over the capital.

Speaking to reporters from a strike site in the Darnytskyi district, President Zelensky blamed the high volume of breakthroughs on systemic delays in Western military aid.

"If our partners had delivered what they promised on time, I think we could have saved more homes and, frankly, more lives," Zelensky said.

Zelensky stated that Ukraine required a minimum of 140 Patriot interceptor missiles to successfully neutralize a ballistic attack of this magnitude. He emphasized that Kyiv was not requesting new aid commitments, but rather the fulfillment of existing logistical agreements.

Zelensky added that Russian President Vladimir Putin is escalating "aerial terror" against civilian infrastructure to offset strategic battlefield vulnerabilities, following recent Ukrainian drone strikes against the Moscow Oil Refinery and Russian military logistics hubs in occupied Crimea.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov rejected reports that civilian infrastructure had been targeted. Peskov maintained that Russian forces targeted strictly "military or quasi-military targets" and confirmed that President Putin had been fully briefed on the results of the mission.

The scale of the bombardment triggered mass evacuations into subterranean shelters. The Kyiv Metro reported that a record 52,500 residents—including approximately 4,500 children—sheltered overnight across the network's 46 underground transit stations.

Commercial entities had anticipated the strikes; the West Oil Group (WOG) gas station network had proactively closed its facilities between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. across Kyiv, Sumy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson oblasts.

The capital assault occurred alongside a broader 24-hour theater-wide Russian bombardment. In Kharkiv Oblast, two people were killed and 48 were injured, including a 15-year-old boy who lost his life during a seven-glide-bomb strike on Kharkiv city.

In Kherson Oblast, the attacks left three dead and 45 injured across multiple settlements, while a ballistic strike on commercial warehouses in Odesa Oblast killed two people and injured 13 others.

Additionally, across Donetsk, Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhia Oblasts, the combined civilian casualties stood at one killed and 24 injured due to localized artillery and rocket fire.

Mayor Klitschko has declared Wednesday, July 3, a formal day of mourning in Kyiv. Local military administrators warned residents that the threat of secondary or consecutive combined missile and drone strikes remains high. (ILKHA)