Russia responds to Kyiv's latest operations with a massive attack that leaves 4 dead

Kiev/Moscow, June 6 (EFE).- Russia launched a new massive attack against Kiev and other Ukrainian regions early this morning, employing more than 40 missiles and about 400 drones that killed at least 4 people and hit, according to Moscow, several infrastructures of the Ukrainian Air Force. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the attack was directed against arms factories, drone assembly workshops, pilot training centers, and weapons arsenals, and is a response to recent operations by Kyiv that the Kremlin qualifies as "terrorist," such as the one carried out by the Ukrainian secret services last Sunday in which more than forty aircraft of the Russian air force were damaged.

Moscow also accuses Kyiv of the explosions that, also last weekend, caused the collapse of two railway bridges in the Russian border regions of Kursk and Bryansk, where the derailment of two trains caused 7 deaths and numerous injuries.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Foreign Minister, Andriy Sibiga, have condemned the Russian bombing and have again asked the international community and especially the United States to adopt new sanctions against the Kremlin to force Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept the ceasefire of at least one month requested by Kyiv.

“At night, Russia ‘responded’ to its destroyed planes… by attacking civilians in Ukraine,” Sibiga wrote on X, adding that while Ukraine “strikes legitimate military targets,” Russia “targets residential areas, civilians, and critical infrastructure.”

Russia used over 40 missiles and around 400 drones in the bombing last night. Most of the missiles and drones were intercepted by Ukrainian defenses, which, however, could not prevent numerous impacts on various infrastructures not always specified by the Ukrainian authorities.

Rescuers killed while saving civilians

Three of the four people killed in the Russian attack were rescue workers and lost their lives in Kyiv while assisting those affected by the first phase of the bombing under Russian fire, which caused several rounds of explosions in the Ukrainian capital.

The lifeless body of the other victim was found hours later under the rubble of a nine-story residential building damaged in the attack.

Also overnight, Russian air defenses intercepted 174 Ukrainian drones over several regions of the country, according to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation.

The Ukrainian General Staff said that in this Ukrainian attack, three fuel and lubricant depots at the Engels air base in the Saratov region of Russia, and another military airfield located in the Ryazan region, were hit.

Other military targets, including a logistics point of two motorized divisions of the Russian army in the Kursk region, were also hit in last night's Ukrainian attack, according to the same source.

This new exchange of attacks occurs amidst the contacts that both sides are maintaining under the auspices of the Turkish Government in Istanbul.

The two meetings held so far have served for the parties to have agreed on several prisoner exchanges that began last month with the exchange of a thousand captives from each side and could continue this weekend, according to official voices from both capitals.

The meetings have not served, however, for Russia to declare the unconditional ceasefire of at least thirty days demanded by Kyiv, which asks daily the administration of President Donald Trump to harden its stance against the Kremlin and begin to dictate punitive economic measures to force Putin to lay down arms so that the war ends as Washington wants.

Ukraine has not been successful so far in its attempts to convince Trump.