The Emergency Service of Ukraine announced at dawn on Thursday, July 2, 2026, that the death toll from the intensified Russian missile and air attack on the capital Kyiv and other regions has risen to at least 13 dead and 56 others injured in varying degrees.

Local authorities reported a partial collapse of a 9-storey residential building following a direct rocket strike, in parallel with the outbreak of massive fires that went out of control that consumed the roofs of hotels, warehouses, student dormitories and civilian facilities in the Bucha area and various places in the capital, forcing hundreds of citizens to flee and take refuge en masse to subway stations to protect themselves and their families.

Precision Weapons and Declared Targets

The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed in an official post on the "Telegram" application, its responsibility for carrying out this large-scale attack, noting that it used weapons, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and long-range and high-precision drones launched simultaneously from the air, land and sea.

The ministry explained that the strikes achieved their objectives precisely by targeting military facilities and vital energy facilities around Kyiv, as well as military airports in the Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk regions, describing the air attack as a direct and legitimate response to the recent Ukrainian strikes that targeted civilian infrastructure and economic facilities inside Russian territory.

Security Warnings and Reciprocal Responses

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at an urgent press conference following the abrupt interruption of his diplomatic visit to the Irish capital Dublin, that accurate intelligence reports had warned in advance of Russian President Vladimir Putin's intention to launch this massive, long-planned attack.

Zelensky indicated that hours before the attack, Ukrainian forces succeeded in bombing an oil refinery in the Russian city of Ufa for the second time in a row, which is more than 1,300 kilometers away from the front lines, in addition to targeting a strategic military industrial facility in the Benza region specialized in the manufacture of missile components, considering these strikes a completely fair response to the ongoing Russian violations.

Russia accuses Ukraine of escalation

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the Ukrainian leadership of deliberately escalating the war and targeting civilians and vital facilities deep inside Russia, considering that Kyiv is not seeking any political settlement to the current conflict.

The official statements came after Russian officials monitored repeated strikes in border areas in recent weeks by long-range drones, while Russia's air defense system announced that it had succeeded in intercepting and destroying hundreds of Ukrainian drones that tried to penetrate Russian airspace over the past few days.

US study: Nearly two million killed in the ranks of the Russian and Ukrainian armies

In addition, a recent statistical study published by the US Center for Strategic and International Studies revealed that the total number of victims of the Russia-Ukraine war has exceeded the two million mark among military personnel on both sides since the outbreak of the conflict in February 2022.

These shocking figures come to confirm that the conflict has turned into the deadliest and most destructive confrontation on the European continent since the end of World War II, amid the continued intensification of mutual missile attacks between Moscow and Kyiv and the failure of all international diplomatic efforts and mediations to find common ground for a ceasefire and an end to the war.