Russian

June 23 (UPI) — At least 13 people were killed and 57 injured in Ukraine, half of them in Kyiv, after Russian forces attacked the capital and other targets in the eastern half of the country with hundreds of drones and ballistic and cruise missiles, officials said Monday.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a social media update that six people were killed when a missile struck and badly damaged a building in the central Shevchenkivskyi district, but that the rescue operation was still underway and there might be more casualties buried under the rubble.

“A terrible picture in the Shevchenko district. Extensive damage to a five-story building. Rescuers, medics, and municipal services are working at the scene. The blast wave also damaged the apartments of the 25-story residential building opposite. Ten people were rescued from it. Among them, a child and a pregnant woman,” said Klitschko.

Another 22 people were injured, 12 of them hospitalized, in attacks on residential and non-residential buildings in five other districts of the capital, he added.

The governor of the region, Mykola Kalashnyk, said one person was killed in Bilotserkivka district, southwest of Kyiv, and four were injured, two of whom were admitted to the hospital. Residential targets were hit in Boryspil and Bila Tserkva, where a medical facility and a hotel were also destroyed.

The town of Bucha, just northwest of Kyiv, one of the first Ukrainian settlements overrun by Russian forces and scene of the U.N.-documented execution of at least 73 civilians and other suspected war crimes after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, also came under attack, damaging several houses and vehicles.

In neighboring Chernihiv province to the northeast, which borders both Russia and Belarus, at least three people were killed and 11 injured, including four teenagers, in missile and drone strikes on Chernihiv, the regional capital, and four other districts, according to Chernihiv Gov. Viacheslav Chaus.

In Donetsk, one of four Ukrainian provinces partly or fully controlled by Russian forces, Gov. Vadym Filashkin reported on Telegram that two people had been killed in Siversk, 18 miles east of the city of Slovyansk, and in Myrne, east of Pokrovsk, with five more injured.

In part-Russian-occupied Kherson, Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin reported via social media that one person had been killed and six injured in Russian drone, artillery and airstrikes on Kherson city and several other communities, damaging seven apartment buildings, 14 houses, a gas pipeline and other civilian targets.

The Ukrainian Air Force said on its official account on Telegram that of 368 incoming attack drones, ballistic and cruise missiles, mostly targeting Kyiv, air defenses managed to down all but 14.

Missile and drone strikes target residential areas in numerous districts across Kyiv.

A “massive” Russian drone and missile attack has killed at least six people in Ukraine’s capital and the surrounding region, according to Ukrainian officials.

Officials said the strikes on Monday morning targeted residential areas in numerous districts across Kyiv. The assault on the city, the second huge overnight blitz in a week, suggests Russia is eager to raise the pressure as global attention is dominated by the United States’s decision to join Israel’s escalating air campaign against Iran.

“Another massive attack on the capital. Possibly, several waves of enemy drones,” Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said in a statement.

“The Russians’ style is unchanged – to hit where there may be people,” Tkachenko said on Telegram. “Residential buildings, exits from shelters – this is the Russian style.

As well as residential buildings, hospitals, sports infrastructure, and the entrance of a metro station being used as a bomb shelter were hit during the large-scale attack, emergency services said.

The attack caused damage in six of Kyiv’s 10 districts and wounded at least 10 people, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said on Telegram.

“At least four people were killed in Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district, where the entire entrance of a residential high-rise building was destroyed,” Klymenko said.

“There are still people under the rubble,” he added.

Meanwhile, a Russian short-range drone attack in the Chernihiv region late on Sunday killed two people and wounded 10 others, including three children, according to authorities.

Another person was killed and eight were wounded overnight in the city of Bila Tserkva, some 85km (53 miles) southwest of Kyiv.

Sabotage

Russia has not commented on the strikes. Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war that Russia launched in February 2022, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.

Russia’s deadliest attack on Kyiv came last week as it unleashed hundreds of drones, killing 28 people and injuring more than 150, with Ukrainian officials saying nearly 30 sites were hit in waves of attacks.

Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskii, amid the rise in attacks on the capital, has pledged to intensify strikes on Russia.

“We will not just sit in defence. Because this brings nothing and eventually leads to the fact that we still retreat, lose people and territories,” he said, according to the AFP news agency.

To that end, Ukraine “will increase the scale and depth” of its attacks on Russian military targets, he added.

Russian forces launched at least 47 drones against Ukraine and fired three missiles overnight on Sunday, the Ukrainian air force said.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of deliberately sabotaging efforts towards agreeing a peace deal, which has been pushed by US President Donald Trump, to prolong its full-scale offensive on the country and to seize more territory.

Russia’s economy must not slide into recession, President Vladimir Putin said, after economists warned for months of a slowdown in growth.

Putin told attendees, including government ministers and central bankers, at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum on Friday that some specialists and experts were “pointing to the risks of stagnation and even a recession”.

“This must not be allowed to happen under any circumstances,” he said.

“We need to pursue a competent, well-thought-out budgetary, tax and monetary policy,” he added.

Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said on Thursday that the economy was on the verge of slipping into a recession, and monetary policy decisions would determine whether it falls into one or not.

In October, the Bank of Russia increased its key interest rate to the highest level since the early 2000s to curb high inflation, only to cut it by one percentage point to 20 percent earlier this month.

Moreover, economists warned for months of a slowdown in the economy, with the country posting its slowest quarterly expansion in two years during the first quarter of 2025.

However, the Kremlin said it expected the slowdown due to two years of rapid expansion as it increased military expenditure to fund its war against Ukraine.

Yet, Putin denied that the defence industry was solely driving the economy. “Yes, of course, the defence industry played its part in this regard, but so did the financial and IT industries,” he said.

He added that the economy needed “balanced growth”, calling on officials to keep a “close eye on all indicators of the health of our industries, companies and even individual enterprises”.

At the same time, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Friday that it was time to “cut the [interest] rate and start heating up the economy”.

German Gref, CEO of Russia’s largest lender Sberbank SBER.MM also called for faster rate cuts to incentivise companies to invest.

Growth of military industries

Putin has used the annual economic forum to highlight Russia’s economic prowess and encourage foreign investment, but Western executives shunned it since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in 2022, leaving it to business leaders from Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The economy, hit with a slew of Western sanctions, has so far outperformed predictions. High defence spending has propelled growth and kept unemployment low despite fuelling inflation.

Large recruiting bonuses for military enlistees and death benefits for those killed in Ukraine have also put more income into the country’s poorer regions. But over the long term, inflation and a lack of foreign investments pose threats to the economy.

Economists have warned of mounting pressure on the economy and the likelihood that it would stagnate due to a lack of investment in sectors other than the military.

Putin said the growth of military industries helped develop new technologies that have become available to the civilian sector.

He pledged to continue military modernisation, relying on lessons learned during the fighting in Ukraine.

“We will harness new technology to improve the combat capabilities of the Russian armed forces, modernise military infrastructure facilities, [and] equip them with the latest technology and weapons and equipment,” he said.

“At the same time, we intend to develop military-technical co-operation with friendly countries. And we are talking not only about supplies or the modernisation of equipment and weapons, but also about joint development, personnel training, and the creation of turn-key enterprises and production facilities,” he added.