Russia devastated Ukraine early Friday with one of the largest aerial attacks in more than three years of war — hours after President Trump suggested the warring nations should just “keep fighting.”
The hours-long nighttime bombardment killed at least three emergency responders in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and injured around 50 civilians throughout at least six different regions.
The barrage included more than 400 drones and 44 ballistic and cruise missiles — of which Ukraine said it knocked 250 out of the sky.
The destruction inside a home after a Russian missile strike on Kyiv on June 6, 2025. AFP via Getty ImagesThat made it even bigger than the roughly 275 drones that attacked the Kyiv region last month, which at the time was thought to have been the largest such attack since war broke out in 2022.
The onslaught came hours after Trump compared Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, to “two young children fighting like crazy.”
“Sometimes you’re better off letting them fight for a while and then pulling them apart,” he said, despite efforts to help broker a peace deal. “And I gave that analogy to Putin … I said, ‘President, maybe you have to keep fighting,'” Trump said.
The Kremlin claimed the latest onslaught Friday was retaliation against “Ukrainian terrorism” after the deadly weekend attacks on Russian air bases and railway bombings.
Firefighters douse water on a building struck by a Russian drone attack in Kyiv. REUTERS
Police officers inspect the damage to a residential building targeted by the attack. AFP via Getty Images“Everything that is being done by our military … is a response to the actions of the Kyiv regime, which has acquired all the characteristics of a terrorist regime,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.
Russia’s military bragged that “the objective of the strike was achieved.”
“All designated targets were hit,” the military said of Friday’s onslaught.
A large hole was left in an apartment building during the early Friday attack. AFP via Getty ImagesUkrainian officials, however, angrily accused its neighbor of slaughtering civilians in response to Kyiv attacking “legitimate military targets.”
“Overnight, Russia ‘responded’ to its destroyed aircraft… by attacking civilians in Ukraine,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha wrote on X.
“The difference … is that Ukraine hits legitimate military targets—such as aircraft equipped to bomb our children. Russia targets residential areas, civilians, and critical infrastructure.”
The attack comes only five days after a failed peace talk between the two countries, which produced agreements on prisoner swaps and the return of each sides’ dead – but no progress on ending the war.
With Post wires.
