Russia launches biggest barrage of war with nearly 500 drones at Ukraine

Nearly 500 drones and 20 missiles of various types were launched by Russia at Ukraine overnight, marking the biggest barrage of the war, Kyiv said. 

On Monday, Ukraine’s air force said its air defenses were able to destroy 277 of the 479 drones launched in the darkness and 19 missiles mid-flight. Kyiv claims only 10 drones of missiles hit their target and just one person was injured.

The bombardment targeted mainly central and western areas of Ukraine, they said.

Russia’s aerial attacks usually start late in the evening and end in the morning, as drones are harder to spot in the dark.

FOUR KILLED IN RUSSIAN ATTACKS ON UKRAINE AS MOSCOW CONTINUES TO RETALIATE FOR KYIV’S DRONE STRIKE

Russia has targeted civilian areas of Ukraine with Shahed drones during the war. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. Russia says it targets only military targets.

Despite the attack, the Kremlin said on Monday that Russia was still ready to honor agreements with Ukraine on a new prisoner of war exchange and on the repatriation of dead soldiers, despite what it said was Kyiv’s failure to so far honor its side of the bargain.

RUSSIA LAUNCHES LARGEST AERIAL ATTACK OF UKRAINE WAR, KILLING AT LEAST 12

An apartment block in the Solomianskyi district is damaged by an overnight Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, on June 6, 2025.

“We have seen and heard a hundred different excuses, justifications and so on, but it is difficult to view them as credible,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to Reuters. “The Russian side remains ready to implement the agreements reached in Istanbul.”

The exchanges were agreed to during a second round of direct peace talks in Istanbul on June 2 and are meant to see a new prisoner of war swap of at least 1,200 people – focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded – as well as the repatriation of thousands of bodies of those killed in the war.

A Ukrainian doctor treats a soldier injured by shrapnel from Russian explosive drones at a medical stabilisation centre of the 3rd Operational Brigade of the National Guard of Ukraine, in an undisclosed location near Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, on June 7, 2025, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  (FLORENT VERGNES/AFP)

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The return of prisoners of war and the return of the bodies of the dead is one of the few things the two sides have been able to agree on, even as their broader negotiations have failed to get close to ending the war, now in its fourth year.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.