A wave of Russian night-time attacks on Kyiv have rattled a city hardened by three years of war, as millions of residents lose sleep to the sounds of sirens, drones and explosions while praying their homes will not be hit.
The barrages targeting the Ukrainian capital have been heavier and longer than at almost any point since Russia’s full-scale invasion, killing at least 40 people this month. In an intense bombardment on Monday this week, Kyiv and other cities were targeted by 368 missiles and drones, leaving nine people dead.
“It’s much worse than a few months ago, the alerts are so long now, all night,” said Darya Malyutina, a Ukrainian language teacher who has been living in Kyiv with her husband for the past 10 years. The couple fled from their native Luhansk in eastern Ukraine in 2015, when Russian-backed separatists took control of the city.
“A few more nights like this and I feel like people are going to start leaving Kyiv again,” Malyutina said.
On June 17th, 28 people were killed in Kyiv when Russia fired 175 drones and 14 cruise and ballistic missiles at the city in one night – the deadliest strike in nearly a year. Rescue teams pulled 23 bodies out of the rubble of a nine-floor residential building that collapsed after being hit. Three emergency responders also died during an air raid on Kyiv earlier this month.
For the couple, the long hours of night-time attacks are now spent in the bathroom trying to calm their dog, who becomes terrified by the loud explosions. They have long given up going to underground shelters, opting to try to get as much sleep as possible inside the thick walls of their building.
It is not just Kyiv. On Tuesday the southeastern city of Dnipro was struck by Russian missiles, killing 16 people and injuring more than 170 others, authorities said. One of the missiles exploded beside a passenger train packed with people, shattering windows and wounding dozens. In north-eastern Sumy, officials reported three people were killed in a Russian drone strike.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had warned this month, before the June 17th attack, that it was “imperative” for Ukrainians to pay attention to raid alerts.
Before the barrages escalated, many people had grown accustomed to the air strikes and ignored the warnings. Perhaps now more than ever, when sirens start blaring, Ukrainians check dedicated Telegram channels to follow the trajectory of incoming Russian drones.
But in a city that has endured three years of war and about 1,700 air raid alerts – five of which lasted more than six hours just this month – reactions still differ.
Some residents head to underground car parks, metro stations or to one of the 4,000 facilities registered as shelters. But the large majority opt to stay in their flats, laying down mattresses in corridors away from the windows or turning bathtubs into makeshift beds for children.
Anya, a 21-year-old university student who came to Kyiv from the mining town of Kryvyi Rih, which is also constantly bombarded by Russia, said she had grown accustomed to the night-time strikes and did not even get up from her bed during the attacks.
Her roommate, by contrast, would get up and move to the safest part of their flat, the hallway. “She goes every time and makes herself a bed there because she’s really scared,” Anya said. “Me ... I feel like my psyche has already adapted.”
At the same time, the unprecedented length and number of attacks has pushed some residents to change their habits.
“There’s more anxiety, we see that some people are reconsidering their decisions when it comes to safety and are planning to go to a shelter if they didn’t do so before,” said Anna Yatsushko, a psychologist working in the capital.
On the night of June 17th more than 300 people – many more than usual – rushed to hide in a school basement in the capital’s Sviatoshynskyi district, the school’s director said.
“We’re being attacked constantly, of course, but it has been a long time since we’ve had such a massive strike,” said Vitaliy Zorin. The school would also be used as a daytime shelter until the end of the summer vacation, he said.
Ukraine’s air defences have been struggling to keep up with the growing number of incoming drones and missiles. Changing Russian tactics have also made interceptions more difficult: faster, more powerful suicide drones based on the Iranian “Shahed” model now fly at higher altitudes, beyond the range of the truck-mounted machine guns used by air defence crews around the capital, and pack larger explosive payloads.
The adaptation is forcing Ukrainian air defences to either use missiles available in only limited quantities or to wait until the drones begin their final dive towards their target.
Russia has also significantly increased its production of drones and missiles of all types, allowing it to attack in increasingly larger swarms.
Konrad Muzyka, director of Rochan Consulting, a Poland-based group that tracks the war, said Russia had launched more Shahed drones this spring than at any time during the war. “In June they have already launched 4,342 and if the current tempo is maintained the total may exceed 5,000 by the end of the month,” he said.
“What we’re seeing right now isn’t necessarily an evolution of the Russian strategy,” said Muzyka. “It’s more that Russia is now able to implement what the Russian and Soviet militaries were doing in previous wars: strikes targeting the civilian population and critical infrastructures as well as military targets.”
More than three years of full-scale war and dwindling prospects of successful peace negotiations have also taken a heavy toll on people’s morale.
“On top of the exhaustion that people feel, there’s now a sense of despondency, a lack of confidence in the future,” said Yatsushko, the psychologist.
A huge drone and missile attack on June 6th damaged railway tracks between the city’s left and right banks, forcing local authorities to close several metro stations. The partial shutdown caused taxi prices to soar and long queues at bus stops.
But the city’s offices, shopping centres and coffee shops filled up as usual in the morning, while the metro stations quickly reopened. The summer vacations have left the schools empty.
“Our first shift starts at 7am, and we have people who need to wake up at 5.30am which yes, can be difficult after one of those hard nights,” said Anatolii Tytarchuk, the owner of Shchyro, a coffee shop that opened last year in Kyiv’s Podil district.
Some of the establishment’s 28 employees had sometimes arrived late or requested a different shift after a night of bombardments, Tytarchuk said. He had also noticed drops in revenue after night-time raids, as exhausted locals came for their morning coffee later than usual.
“We have never not opened because of an attack,” he said.
Even attacks with few casualties have had a big impact: the June 10th raid targeted industrial areas as well as critical infrastructure, and killed one person. But it still forced residents to endure hours of explosions and machine gun fire, as well as the relatively new and terrifying rising pitch of a drone diving sharply towards the ground. When people emerged, huge plumes of smoke hung over the capital.
“For me this attack was much louder, much more dramatic than the one on June 17th, but I heard different stories from my staff, depending on where people live,” said Tytarchuk.
That night, the 40-year-old entrepreneur wrapped his arms around his son’s head to cover his ears as explosions shook the centre of Kyiv.
“That’s the most emotional part: when you realise this reality that you live in.” – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2025
