The strikes on cities including Kyiv and Dnipro followed Russian warnings of “systematic” attacks on the capital after a drone attack on a dormitory in Ukraine’s Russian-held region of Luhansk last month. Kyiv denies targeting the dormitory.
It was the third heavy assault on Kyiv in under a month.
US-brokered talks on the war in Ukraine have stalled, with Washington focused on Iran, while Russian battlefield advances have slowed and Kyiv has boosted strikes on Russian oil refineries.
Zelensky said there was evidence Russian forces could strike again on Tuesday night.
“According to our intelligence, another large-scale attack may occur tonight,” he said in his nightly video address.
“Please, I strongly urge you to pay attention to air raid alerts.”
Zelensky repeated that Ukraine was short of weapons to counter incoming Russian missiles. “Unfortunately, the current level of supplies for our air defence does not enable us to intercept a significant portion of the missiles,” he said.
He said more than 70 missiles and 650 drones had been deployed overnight and Russian forces had deployed 100 more drones throughout the day on Tuesday.
Earlier, the Ukrainian president urged Washington to send additional Patriot missile interceptors.
“If Ukraine is not protected from ballistic and other missile strikes, these attacks will continue,” Zelensky said on Telegram.
The Kremlin said the war had entered “a new paradigm” after what it called “inhumane acts of terror” by Ukraine’s military against civilians, echoing accusations Kyiv has made against Russian forces. Moscow warned last week of systematic strikes and urged foreigners to leave Kyiv.
Zelensky sent a letter last week to US President Donald Trump and Congress, asking for air defence systems. As of Monday, officials said he had not received a response.
The US has been Ukraine’s main foreign supplier of weapons but Kyiv has also been purchasing Patriot missiles through a Nato initiative, financed by its European allies.
In New York, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemned” the Russian attacks. He repeated Guterres’ appeal for “immediate de-escalation, leading to a full, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire in this conflict.”
Photographs on Tuesday showed explosions and smoke billowing over high-rise buildings in Kyiv, where officials said seven people were killed, including one person Mayor Vitali Klitschko said had died while being treated in hospital. At least 90 were wounded.
“We couldn’t understand what was happening – some kind of apocalypse?” Olha Mudra, her face and clothes covered in dust, said at the site of one strike, accompanied by her six-year-old daughter Natalia.
Sixteen people were killed overnight, including two young boys, in the southeastern city of Dnipro, local officials said. New attacks later on Tuesday injured at least two more people.
In Kyiv, at least nine high-rise buildings, a kindergarten, a clinic, offices and administrative buildings were damaged. The attack cut power to 140,000 residents, power company DTEK said.
More than 40,000 took shelter in the Kyiv subway system – the biggest number in recent years. Some carried pets, belongings and mattresses.
The Russia-installed head of parts of Donetsk Region held by Moscow said one person died in a Ukrainian drone attack.
Ukraine’s Air Force said the attack included 33 hard-to-shoot-down ballistic missiles and eight Zircon hypersonic missiles, which appeared to be the largest number of such missiles used at once during the war.
Russian regions also came under attack. The Ilsky oil refinery, in the southern Krasnodar region, caught fire after a drone attack, local authorities said on Telegram. Ukraine’s military confirmed the strike. (Reuters)
