Russia's massive overnight strike kills 18 in Ukraine

Russia launched hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities overnight, killing at least 18 civilians and wounding more than 100 others, authorities said Tuesday.

Emergency crews pulling through apartment-building rubble recovered the bodies of a 3-year-old child and a mother with her 8-year-old son in Dnipro. Twelve people were killed in Dnipro; six in Kyiv. The attacks stretched from night into day, with explosions reverberating across cities.

Kyiv residents had been bracing for the assault after Russia warned that a massive aerial attack was coming. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appealed for more U.S. and European support, calling the overnight barrage "an explicit statement by Russia: If Ukraine is not protected from ballistic missiles and other missile strikes, those strikes will continue."

Russia unleashed 73 missiles and 656 drones across Ukraine, with main targets including Kyiv, Dnipro, and the eastern cities of Poltava, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia. Ukrainian air defense forces destroyed or suppressed 40 missiles and 602 drones.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has intensified the aerial campaign, recently deploying the hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile for only the third time in the four-year war. Experts say Russia is exploiting Ukraine's shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defense missiles, with international stocks depleted by other conflicts. That leaves civilians especially vulnerable to Russian barrages, even as air defenses stop most attack drones.

One Kyiv resident, Iryna Salikova, 37, spent the night in a bathtub with her 3-year-old daughter. "Our window was broken. A cobblestone flew into the children's room," she said. "Thank God we're alive. Today we're alive, today we're lucky."