Russia hit Kyiv with the most intense drone and missile bombardment since the war began on November 14, killing six people and injuring a dozen more, as the Kremlin ramps up its campaign to force Ukrainians to suffer a dark and freezing winter.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy described the attack as “deliberate, calculated and wicked”. Ukraine’s prime minister, Yulia Svyrydenko, said the bombardment was “unprecedented”. She said about 30 residential buildings were targeted, five people were taken to hospital, including a pregnant woman, and several children were hurt. And Germany’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said Vladimir Putin had shown “contempt for humanity”.

Residents of Ukraine’s capital scurried into metro stations and bunkers as the air raid sirens sounded once again to spend yet another night underground as hundreds of Shahed drones arrived in the skies above Kyiv. The capital’s air defences went into action and the city was filled with the sound of heavy machine-gun fire from Ukrainian defence forces attempting to bring the drones down, The Guardian reports.

The was attacked by 430 drones and 12 ballistic missiles and seven cruise missiles, according to the authorities. Residential buildings were targeted and there are no military targets in the city.

The Ukrainian authorities claim to have shot down: 6 of 9 Iskander-M Ballistic Missiles; 2 of 3 Kinzhal Missiles; 6 of 6 Kalibr Cruise Missiles, failed to hit the one Zircon Missile. They also claim to have downed 405 of the 430 drones. 

Russia rained down 430 drones and 18 missiles on the weekend of November 14, killing six and injuring dozens more, in one of the most intense barrages of the war. 

Russia has introduced new tactics to make its attacks more effective. Previously, it swarmed drones in the hopes of overwhelming Ukraine’s air defences. At the same time it has been using fast flying and powerful cruise missiles to target the air defence systems themselves. More recently, however, a new tactic has emerged where Russia launches large drone attacks in waves every half an hour in an effort to deplete Ukraine’s air defences and then fires several missiles in a devastating follow up. Moreover, these attacks are made repeatedly over a series of days putting growing pressure on Ukraine’s reserves of air defence ammunition. Both countries have massively increased their production of drones, but Russia has also doubled its missile production from some 1,200 in 2024 to 2,500 this year.

And Russia’s missiles and drones are constantly evolving. Recently, Russia added jet propulsion to its drones to increase their speed and range as well as upgrading the massive FAB 3,000 glide bombs against which Ukraine has little effective defence.

Last year, Ukraine’s Defence Ministry released its first missile interception success rates which show its defences are relatively effective against drones and missiles like the Kalibr and Iskander, but remains largely unable to stop the more modern missiles like the Kinzhal and Zircon. Luckily, these missiles are so expensive that the Kremlin makes limited use of them.

Escalating missile war

Half a dozen people were killed in their apartments in a block of flats on Kyiv’s left bank. Dozens of other buildings were damaged, including the Azerbaijani embassy, which was struck by falling debris. The government in Baku called in the Russian ambassador to Azerbaijan in a formal protest.

The barrage has become more intense since a new phase of the war started, a missile war of increasingly intense attacks that are also destroying Ukraine’s generation and power transmission infrastructure that has plunged the country into darkness. At least a third of Ukraine’s regions are now on an emergency power regime as Russia destroys the last of the non-nuclear power generating capacity and now targets transmission lines and substations, destroying them faster than Ukraine can repair them. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said the capital’s heating system had been damaged this weekend, with service being interrupted in one district. He warned of possible disruptions to power and water supplies.

The attack has been made more effective by the dwindling stock of air defence ammo and new Russian tactics. The Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) is running low on Patriot missile system ammo after months of attacks and the US has refused to provide Kyiv with more. Germany recently delivered two new systems that it had on order from the US and Israel has also reportedly delivered two old systems. However, Bankova (Ukraine’s equivalent of the Kremlin) has previously called for ten more systems as a minimum to protect the largest cities and last week Zelenskiy called on US President Donald Trump to sell Ukraine a total of 27 Patriot systems. For its part, the US has 60 systems in its stockpile. But after burning through its strategic reserves to supply Israel during its short war with Iran this summer, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has said the US no longer has enough Patriot systems left to meet its own strategic security needs.

Following this weekend's attack, Zelenskiy once again called on Europe and the US to supply additional air defence systems and to impose further sanctions on Russia’s oil industry. He said Ukraine was taking its own measures to prevent attacks by hitting Russian energy targets using home-produced deep-strike missiles.

Reports from the Defence Ministry claim that Ukraine had used its new Flamingo cruise missile against Russian targets over the weekend for the first time and the ministry also released the first video of the use of Ukraine’s domestically developed Neptune long-range missile in operation on the Russian Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, in what was clearly a moral building exercise. 

Novorossiysk is one of Russia’s two main access points to the sea and accounts for 3% of global supplies of oil. It is also a major source of oil export revenues for the Kremlin and a very high value target. The port was reportedly set ablaze by an intense Ukrainian missile attack.  (video) Zelenskiy called the attack “our entirely just response to Russia’s ongoing terror”.