Russia launched a fresh wave of pre-dawn missile and drone attacks on Ukraine on Tuesday, striking Kyiv and several other large cities as it stepped up a deadly bombing campaign that began a day earlier and was one of the largest of the war.
The barrage hit a hotel in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, sparked brush fires in parks in Kyiv and set off air alarms throughout most of the country.
Russia has over the past year fired large volleys roughly once a month in attempts to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defense systems with combinations of drones and missiles launched from multiple directions.
The bombardment that began on Monday could have additional significance, however, because it comes three weeks after Ukraine’s military launched an incursion into the Kursk region of Russia. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had promised a decisive response to what was the first invasion of Russia since World War II, and his spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, reiterated that message on Monday, saying that Russia would inflict “an appropriate response.”
It was unclear whether the attacks this week constituted that retaliation, though President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that Monday’s barrage of ballistic and cruise missiles was “one of the largest” his country has faced since Russia’s invasion began 30 months ago.
On Tuesday, a ballistic missile attack on the hotel in Kryvyi Rih killed two people and wounded five others, the head of the regional military administration, Serhiy Lysak, wrote in a post on Telegram. Mr. Lysak posted photographs showing the collapsed ruins of the hotel, the Aurora.
Two people were killed and four others were wounded when seven exploding drones streaked into the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia early Tuesday, according to the regional military administrator, Ivan Fyodorov.
And in Kyiv, a loud explosion echoed in the downtown area around dawn. The city’s military administration said that the capital was under a “combined rocket and drone attack of the enemy,” and the authorities said that falling debris from intercepted missiles or drones had set grass on fire in two city parks, the authorities said.
While Ukraine’s military has not yet said how many missiles and drones it intercepted on Tuesday, it said on Monday that it had shot down 201 of the 236 missiles and drones launched by Russian forces, a high success rate.
Ukraine relies on Soviet-legacy interceptors, which it had in great numbers before the invasion in 2022, and an array of Western-provided air defenses. They include long-range Patriots; midrange NASAMS; and short-range, shoulder-fired Stingers, intended to prevent missiles from slipping through to hit targets.
Ukraine’s relative success in shooting down the incoming fire is in large part a testament to the tens of billions of dollars in military aid the country has received since February 2024 from its allies in NATO and, in particular, the United States.
President Biden on Monday reiterated his “unshakable” support for Ukraine and said that his government would continue to lead a coalition of more than 50 nations that has rallied help for the country.
“I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, Russia’s continued war against Ukraine and its efforts to plunge the Ukrainian people into darkness,” he said, a reference to one of the main targets of Monday’s attacks: energy infrastructure.
The attacks came against the backdrop of grinding battles in eastern Ukraine.
One of Ukraine’s aims with the incursion into the Kursk region was to force the Kremlin to divert troops from the front lines in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, where they have been advancing on the city of Pokrovsk.
But Russia has been pressing on with its offensive in Donetsk. On Monday, Mr. Zelensky said that Ukraine would send reinforcements to Pokrovsk in a bid to shore up the beleaguered city’s defense.
Military analysts have for months argued that Ukrainian military resources are already stretched thin, raising questions about whether it can continue attacking inside Russia while maintaining its defenses in the east.
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