Russia launched 1,567 drones and 56 missiles against Ukraine over two days beginning May 13, killing at least 27 civilians in the war’s largest two-day aerial assault, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Thursday.
Following the previous day’s massive drone assault involving nearly 800 drones, Russia launched another large-scale overnight attack against Ukraine using missiles and drones:
📊 Total: 693/731 aerial targets intercepted or suppressed.
⁰— 29/35 Kh-101⁰— 12/18 Iskander-M/S-400… https://t.co/oZE9eM46kn pic.twitter.com/G7TlR2eSyz— Special Kherson Cat 🐈🇺🇦 (@bayraktar_1love) May 14, 2026
Kyiv bore the heaviest losses. At least 21 people, including three children, died after a Kh-101 cruise missile, a long-range, air-launched weapon, demolished a nine-story residential building in the Darnytsia neighborhood. Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed a 12-year-old and 15-year-old were among the dead and declared Friday a day of mourning.
It certainly cannot be called a coincidence that one of the longest massive Russian attacks against Ukraine takes place precisely at the time when the President of the United States arrived for a visit to China – a visit from which much is expected. In this difficult geopolitical… pic.twitter.com/lggXvoAJtS
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 13, 2026
Ukrainian Armed Forces Colonel Dmytro Kashchenko said Russia used the May 8–9 Victory Day ceasefire as operational cover to reduce Ukrainian counterstrikes, redeploy air defenses around Moscow, and accumulate the drone stockpile. The attack opened as U.S. President Donald Trump arrived in Beijing for his first China visit in nine years.
“It certainly cannot be called a coincidence that one of the longest…attacks against Ukraine takes place precisely at the time when the President of the United States arrived for a visit to China,” Zelenskyy wrote on X.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the attack showed Russia was not interested in Washington’s peace push. “I am certain that the leaders of the United States and China have enough leverage over Moscow to tell Putin to finally end the war,” Sybiha wrote on X.
Serhiy Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine’s defense minister, said drone waves flew roughly 6 miles from the Belarusian border to saturate western air defenses.
⚠️ Russia has changed its Shahed drone tactics
According to Ukrainian Defense Ministry adviser Serhii Beskrestnov, the drones are now flying along the border with Belarus at a distance of 5–10 km, literally one after another and in large groups.
Russia is trying to overload… https://t.co/DyTdOULp2Y pic.twitter.com/5E1fNIjYRA
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) May 13, 2026
Zelenskyy said 180 facilities were damaged, including more than 50 residential buildings, with electricity disrupted in 11 regions and more than 1,500 rescue workers deployed nationwide. Ukraine’s PAC-3 interceptors were already strained entering the assault.
The Russian Defense Ministry described the operation as a retaliatory strike against energy infrastructure, drone assembly facilities, and ammunition depots.
