On July 3rd, 2025, President Vladimir Putin rejected the idea of American President Donald Trump to declare a truce, after which a wave of Russian drones and missiles finally besieged Ukraine. The air force in Ukraine said it had recorded a historic strike of nearly 550 drones and 11 missiles to strike the capital; a barrage official said was the heaviest ever on the capital city Kyiv since the beginning of the invasion. Government officials reported one death, at least 23 people injured, and damage in almost all the regions.
/*Meditations on Strikes and Devastation throughout Kyiv*/
Night-long city-wide air raid warnings, and then only unusual silence, interspersed with the continued impacts.”
Mayor Vitali Klitschko told of fires caused by debris in Svyatoshynskyi and Shevchenkivskyi districts, and home, school, and metro damage. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, 339 drones and 15 missiles have been shot down, but 72 projectiles have impacted their targets.
/*Political Situation: The Putin-Trump Truce Attempt*/
The attack was just a few hours after a Trump-Putin phone call. Trump had insisted on a US-brokered ceasefire, but Putin has allegedly dismissed it, causing Ukraine to allege that the Russian leader has weaponized diplomacy and is staging aggression. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, said on X:
'When it comes to calling Putin, one can only expect a huge show of shelling in Kyiv'.
/*Broader Context: Rising Uses of Drones*/
The situation leading up to this attack is quite disturbing. In June, Russia fired more than 400 drones and 40 missiles in the yet another focused attack, leaving four people dead and many others injured. And on April 24, a KN-23 ballistic missile took 13 lives in Sviatoshynskyi. Ukrainian leaders fear that such unending airstrikes are a tactic of psychological war that is supposed to overpower air defense as well as demoralize the civilians.
/*What Next: Calls of Immediate Assistance*/
President Zelenskyy described the attacks as a willful terror and asked for further Western air defense systems to be provided, particularly the Patriots. Trump responded by expressing his intentions over the phone with Zelenskyy to bolster Ukraine in the air and research the cooperative manufacturing of arms in the face of American Patriot breaks. According to The Hague, NATO leaders are planning on the issue of coordinated pressure on Moscow.