The attacks followed threats that Russia would begin ’systematic strikes’ after Ukrainian drones struck student housing in Russia-occupied Luhansk.
Russia conducted strikes overnight across several areas in Ukraine in retaliation for what it said was a deliberate attack on civilians in Russian-held Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on June 2 that it had struck key military targets, such as airfields and fuel and transport facilities. It said it used drones and hypersonic missiles to attack several regions, including Kharkiv, Kyiv, and Zaporizhzhia.
“Overnight, in response to terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime, the armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive strike using high-precision long-range air-, land-, and sea-based weapons,” the Defense Ministry said.
Ukrainian authorities said the attacks on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and other cities had killed at least 11 people and wounded more than 100.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a June 2 post on X that the main strikes were on Kyiv, with dozens of residential buildings and civilian infrastructure damaged. A four-story apartment block in Dnipro was also struck, and part of the building “was essentially demolished.”
Russia also struck energy facilities in the Kharkiv region as well as critical infrastructure in the city of Kharkiv and in the regions of Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Sumy, and Zaporizhzhia, Zelenskyy said.
“In total, overnight Russia launched 656 attack drones and 73 missiles of various types at our people—ballistic, cruise, and anti-ship missiles,” Zelenskyy said.
“A large-scale attack and an absolutely clear statement from Russia: if Ukraine is not protected from ballistic and other missile strikes, these attacks will continue,” he said, adding that Europe needs its own anti-ballistic defense system.
The assaults followed threats from the Kremlin this past week that Russia would begin to carry out “systematic strikes” in retaliation for a Ukrainian drone attack on a student dormitory in Luhansk that killed 21 people. Ukraine had said it had not targeted the students and was aiming at a drone command center.
Kyiv and Moscow both deny deliberately targeting civilians.
