A Record 28 Ballistic Missiles Including Hypersonic Zircons Hit Ukraine’s Capital Overnight as 52,500 People Shelter in Metro Stations
According to NPR, Russia launched more than 70 missiles and around 500 drones at Kyiv in a massive overnight assault on July 2, 2026, killing at least 18 civilians and injuring over 90 others.
Twenty-eight of the missiles were ballistic; a record number for a single attack on the capital, including hypersonic Zircon missiles that struck residential buildings across all districts of the city. Damage was recorded at more than 30 locations, with a nine-story apartment block collapsing in the Desnyanskyi district and fires breaking out across multiple residential buildings, a hotel, an ambulance station, and energy infrastructure belonging to Ukraine’s largest private power company, DTEK.
Kyiv’s metro sheltered a record 52,500 people, including nearly 4,500 children, across all 46 underground stations during the attack. Poland scrambled fighter jets in response, and Finland temporarily imposed an aviation restriction zone over its eastern Gulf region.
Russia’s Defense Ministry framed the strike as retaliation for Ukrainian long-range drone attacks on Russian oil refineries and military facilities, though Ukraine’s Foreign Minister rejected this justification entirely, stating Ukraine was exercising its legal right to self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter.
Russia just fired its largest ballistic missile salvo ever at a single city and still failed to break Kyiv.
Check out our previous coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war here.
