Russian drones struck central Kiev this morning, wounding 11 people and damaging residential and university buildings, the seventh day of near-continuous attacks that have disrupted daily life in the Ukrainian capital.
A new Russian air campaign against Kiev and the surrounding region has killed dozens of civilians and disrupted logistics, as the city tries to shoot down jet drones that fly in waves over the area.
The attack on the university in the city center occurred while students were in class, forcing about 160 of them to seek shelter, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
"Unfortunately, the reaction of the world and its most influential leaders to this latest Russian escalation of attacks is too weak," Zelensky wrote on the X network.
The attacks are intensifying at a time when Ukraine is already preparing for a new season of Russian strikes on energy infrastructure, with a critical shortage of American-designed interceptor missiles needed to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles.
Earlier today, Russia used missiles and drones to strike power plants in the southern Odessa region, authorities said, knocking out power to more than 350.000 households.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said late yesterday that he had ordered his forces to prepare a new campaign of "massive" strikes.
Two more people were killed and eight others wounded in attacks on the southeastern city of Dnieper, the regional governor said. Food warehouses and educational institutions were damaged.
Traffic in chaos, parliament in shelter
Loud explosions echoed through central Kiev this morning as air defenses targeted incoming drones. The sound of their jet engines could be heard throughout the city as they streaked through the sky.
Although they are launched in small numbers, they have caused frequent airstrikes that have disrupted public transport in the city of several million people and forced lawmakers to take shelter underground.
Parts of Kiev's Soviet-era metro system are shutting down during the emergency, leaving residents stuck in massive traffic jams.
Many of Reuters' interviewees spoke of fatigue mixed with resignation.
"What scares me is that I've become a fatalist when it comes to alarms - I no longer feel threatened or need to take shelter somewhere," said 26-year-old Julija, a marketing expert, adding that she only feels "complete helplessness."
Alarms interrupted the parliamentary session twice today, so lawmakers tested a new digital voting system from a shelter under the building, said opposition lawmaker Jaroslav Zeleznyak, who released a video of the system.
Later today, Zelensky said that Ukraine's alert system would be divided into two levels, for missiles and for drones, to allow for "greater predictability and a better understanding of how to respond."
He added that the duration of the curfew would be shortened and more surface public transport options would be introduced to compensate for the closure of the metro.
Ukraine wants to clear Russian skies
Kiev and Moscow have been exchanging increasingly intense attacks on logistical and economic infrastructure in recent weeks, trying to weaken the other side's war-making capabilities in the fifth year of the conflict.
Kiev announced today that it had asked the International Civil Aviation Organization to discourage its members from using Russian airspace, in order to open up space for additional Ukrainian attacks.
The request came after Zelensky warned airlines and insurance companies late on Tuesday that the presence of Ukrainian drones made Russian airspace dangerous to use.
The Ukrainian president said last week that he had ordered the military to increase the number of long-range drone strikes on Russia to 1.000 per day, from the current rate of about 300.
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