Dawn
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18:48 Jul 04, 2025
Russia pummelled Kyiv with the largest drone attack of the war, injuring at least 23 people and damaging buildings across the Ukrainian capital hours after US President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s Vladimir Putin, officials said on Friday. Air raid sirens, the whine of kamikaze drones and booming detonations reverberated from early evening until dawn as Russia launched what Ukraine’s Air Force said was a total of 539 drones and 11 missiles. Families huddled in underground metro stations for shelter. Acrid smoke hung over the city centre. Outside a high-rise apartment block damaged by a drone, residents stood around surveying the scene as the clean-up job began. Some cried. Others looked on silently. “I woke up to the sound of explosions, first the Shahed drones started buzzing, and then the explosions began,” said 40-year-old resident Maria Hilchenko. “Then people started screaming outside. The explosions from the Shaheds kept coming.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack “deliberately m...