Explosions boomed and thick gray smoke rose over the Ukrainian capital early on Thursday as Russia hammered the city with deadly waves of ballistic missiles and drones.
Firefighters raced to extinguish blazes in several districts of the capital, Kyiv. Several apartment buildings were partially destroyed and an unknown number of people were trapped in the rubble, according to the local authorities. Emergency workers rushed to respond even as more explosions were heard.
Emergency services said that at least 13 people had been killed and more than 30 others wounded in the assault, which began Wednesday night and was still loudly underway as dawn broke on Thursday morning. Birds could be heard chirping in between booms.
Many in Kyiv had already been bracing for a large-scale combined assault, in part because about two weeks had passed since the last one — giving Russia time to stockpile missiles and drones for heavy bombardment — and because Ukraine had been heaping pressure on President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Ukrainian forces have been launching long-range drone attacks on Moscow, disrupting Russian fuel supplies and pounding Crimea — the peninsula Russia illegally annexed in 2014 — with drones and missiles.
When the assault on Kyiv began on Wednesday night, Russian attack drones came first. The rat-tat-tat of air defenses firing was followed by one large explosion, then more. A large fire was soon seen burning in the city center, with a smaller blaze just beyond it.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko of Kyiv implored people to stay in shelters as the night wore on and ballistic missiles entered Ukraine’s airspace. Additional powerful explosions started to rock the city just before 2 a.m. Thursday, setting off car alarms that soon mingled with sirens.
Images of burning apartment buildings and cars ablaze started to emerge on Ukrainian social media channels. A market, a hotel and an ambulance station also sustained damage, according to local officials, who warned that more missiles, and then drones, were on their way.
The city remained under air-raid warnings for over 11 hours, until just after 7 a.m.
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said that damage and destruction had been recorded at more than 30 locations, touching every district of the city.
“There are very significant direct hits on residential buildings,” he wrote on Telegram, saying that bodies were being pulled from the rubble. The authorities warned that the death toll could still rise.
Many residents of the capital had spent the night sheltering in subway stations with sleeping bags and pets, hunkering down after President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine warned that Russia was preparing another “massive strike” and urged people to be “especially careful.”
In a statement on Thursday, Russia’s defense ministry called the assault on Kyiv a response to Ukraine’s recent attacks inside Russia.
Ukraine says the goal of its long-range drone campaign is to take the war to Russia and to get Mr. Putin to agree to end the conflict. But Mr. Putin, even as his ability to isolate Russian society from the war’s effect has diminished, has expressed defiance and dug in.
“Putin wants to keep fighting,” Mr. Zelensky said Wednesday in Ireland, where he was attending a European Council event, before rushing home. “That is why he must face conditions that make it impossible for him to keep this war going.”
The air-raid sirens wailed in Kyiv just a few hours later, the start of a long and loud night for the city’s residents.
