A Russian missile and drone attack killed at least 21 people across Ukraine overnight, including two children, marking one of Moscow’s largest assaults in recent months.

An eight-year-old boy and three women pulled from the rubble of an apartment block were among 15 people killed in Dnipro, regional officials said. In the capital Kyiv, six people were killed.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said civilian infrastructure and energy facilities had been targeted across the country, with more than 100 people injured.

Russia’s defence ministry said the strikes had been a response to previous Ukrainian attacks, saying in a statement that the “strike objectives” had all been achieved.

The Kremlin said yesterday it was carrying out the systematic strikes it had pledged after accusing Kyiv of a deadly attack on a student dormitory in an occupied part of eastern Ukraine in late May. Kyiv said it had hit a Russian military unit.

“This practice will continue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters yesterday, claiming the strikes were targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure.

Zelenskyy had warned a “massive strike” was possible in his nightly video address on Monday, and urged residents to pay special attention to air raid alerts.

Yesterday morning, he said Russia had launched 656 strike drones and 73 missiles of various types, ballistic, cruise, and anti-ship, in the overnight attack.

“We urgently need help from the United States in supplying missiles for Patriot systems”, the Ukrainian president said, referring to interception hardware used to intercept Russian missiles.

Patriot missiles have been in short supply, exacerbated by the United States and Israeli war against Iran.

Since returning to power last year, United States President, Donald Trump, has also stopped direct supplies to Ukraine, so Kyiv’s European allies have been buying them from America before sending them to Ukraine.