Ukrainians defiant after Russian attacks

Russia launched a missile-and-drone attack on Ukraine overnight, killing at least three people in Kyiv, igniting fires across the capital and partially shutting down its metro system days after Ukraine embarrassed the Kremlin with a surprise strike on its bomber fleet.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had used more than 400 drones and 40 missiles in the overnight attack, making it among the war’s largest. He said Moscow’s attack killed four people, injured another 80, and targeted “almost all” of Ukraine, listing nine regions, from Lviv in the west to Sumy in the northeast.

Although Russia has pummeled Ukraine almost daily over three years of full-scale war, Ukrainians had been bracing for retaliation since Sunday, when Kyiv launched an audacious operation that struck more than a third of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers.

In a call with his US counterpart Donald Trump on Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Moscow would have to respond to Kyiv’s assault. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its strikes were in response to what it called Kyiv’s “terrorist acts.”

It was not immediately clear if the attack was the extent of Russia’s pledged retaliation, or if Putin intends to escalate further. After the embarrassment of Kyiv’s operation, there was a chorus of bellicose calls from pro-Kremlin pundits for a severe – potentially nuclear – response.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s general staff on Friday said it launched overnight strikes on two Russian airfields, where it said Moscow had concentrated many of the aircraft that had not been damaged in Kyiv’s “Spiderweb” operation last weekend.

Ukraine stressed that the operation, which blindsided the Kremlin, had targeted the planes that Russia uses to launch missile strikes on Ukrainian cities and kill civilians. After Russia’s large-scale attack Friday, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Moscow had “responded” to its destroyed aircraft by once again “attacking civilians in Ukraine.”

As daylight broke, images from Kyiv showed flames rising over apartment buildings and firefighting crews at work, with residents picking through the debris of damaged apartments. Several cars parked in the streets below were covered with shards of glass and slabs of masonry torn from the walls of residential buildings.

Despite these devastating attacks from Russia, Ukrainian citizens appear resilient, and support their government’s attacks on Russia, despite the response that it was sure to trigger from Moscow.

But these developments appear to put a damper on any possible peace between the two countries in the near future.