'Most massive' Russian attack on Kyiv kills at least 20
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- Russia launched what Kyiv Mayor Vitaly Klitschko called the 'most massive attack' on the capital, killing 20 people and injuring around 90; Klitschko declared Friday a day of mourning.
- Ukraine's air force reported Russia fired 74 missiles and 496 drones overnight, with 25 ballistic missiles and 12 drones penetrating air defences to strike 33 locations across Kyiv.
- Klitschko said the barrage hit an ambulance station and multiple residential blocks, with children among the casualties according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv's military administration.
- President Zelensky appealed to Washington for licences to manufacture Patriot defence missiles after aviation expert Bohdan Dolintsev said Russia's tactic of layering multiple weapon types within the same time window created 'an exceptionally complex challenge' for Ukraine's air defences.
- Moscow claimed it struck military plants and energy infrastructure in retaliation for Ukrainian long-range attacks on Russian power stations — strikes that prompted a rare admission from Vladimir Putin of fuel shortages.
- Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha called framing the strikes as retaliation 'immoral,' saying 'in this war, there is an aggressor and a country defending itself.'
Why it matters: The barrage deployed the largest number of weapons ever used against Kyiv, according to Klitschko — and residents told the BBC the pattern has shifted toward fewer but longer, more powerful multi-wave strikes that exhaust air defences. That makes Zelensky's appeal for domestic Patriot manufacturing an operational emergency for Ukraine's ability to absorb future salvos.
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