Ukrainian officials said Russia launched more than 200 drones against Ukraine overnight, in strikes that followed the expiry of a US-mediated ceasefire and undercut hopes the pause would be extended.
The temporary truce, agreed for May 9–11 to coincide with the anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War Two, was part of a US-led push for a broader pause in fighting under President Donald Trump. Kyiv says it proposed extending the partial ceasefire, but Moscow instead stepped up attacks.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv had asked Moscow to prolong the pause. Instead, he wrote on X, Russian forces sent over 200 drones that struck civilian infrastructure, including a kindergarten, injuring at least six people and killing at least one.
Ukraine’s air force reported that since 6pm local time on Monday (1500 GMT) Russia launched 216 drones, and that 192 of them were intercepted or otherwise neutralised.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia chose to end the brief period of silence and that drones were intercepted over several regions but caused damage to energy sites, apartment blocks, a kindergarten and even a civilian locomotive.
In Kyiv, debris from a downed drone fell onto the roof of a 16-storey residential building in the Obolon district, sparking a fire, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. In the surrounding Kyiv region, a kindergarten roof was set alight and windows were blown out of a nearby four-storey block, regional governor Mykola Kalashnyk said.
Officials reported injuries and damage across multiple regions. Two people were hurt in Cherkasy region. In Zhytomyr, residential buildings and cars were damaged, and northern Chernihiv was also hit. Transport infrastructure in Dnipro was damaged, wounding one person, while shelling in Kherson wounded a woman.
In Mykolaiv region, strikes on energy infrastructure caused power outages in several settlements, regional governor Vitaliy Kim said.
During the earlier truce both sides reported lower levels of large-scale airstrikes but accused each other of continuing drone and artillery attacks along the front line. The overnight barrage marks a sharp escalation after the short ceasefire expired.
