Destruction in Kyiv, Ukraine after Russia’s missile and drone strikes, July 2, 2026

EA-Times Radio VideoCast: Ukraine — “If Crimea Falls, Putin Cannot Hide From Russian People”

EA-Ukraine VideoCast: Can Russia Hold Out in Occupied Crimea?

Thursday’s Coverage: Russia Murders 21+ Civilians, Injures 85 in Strikes on Kyiv

UPDATE 1009 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has posted about latest casualties of Russian attacks on Kyiv and beyond.

In Zelensky’s native town of Kryvyi Rih, seven people were wounded in a strike on a garage cooperative. Residential buildings and two schools were damaged.

In the Kharkiv region in the northeast, six civilians were wounded, including three children, in an attack on a home.

A doctor was killed and a nurse wounded by a missile strikes on the regional hospital in Kherson in southern Ukraine.

In the Sumy region in the northeast, an overnight drone strike on an apartment building killed four people, including a mother and her daughter.

UPDATE 1003 GMT:

Gas stations have suspended sales in Novorossiysk, southern Russia’s largest port on the Black Sea.

Only those with fuel cards, intended for company vehicles, can fill up their vehicles.

Novorossiysk’s port handles the transshipment of oil and petroleum products, as well as the export of raw materials from Kazakhstan. It hosts an oil depot and terminals of Russia’s largest oil companies.

UPDATE 0627 GMT:

Ukraine’s military says it struck 12 power substations and one gas distribution station in Russian-occupied territories during a 48-hour operation on Wednesday and Thursday.

The head of Ukraine’s unmanned forces, Robert Brovdi said the attacks shut down energy facilities in occupied Crimea, already suffering from widespread power outages, as well as in occupied areas in the Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia regions in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Ten of the electrical substations are in Crimea and one each in Luhansk and Donetsk. A gas distribution station in Luhansk and a fuel depot in Zaporizhzhia were hit.

Overnight Ukrainian drones struck an energy equipment plant in Belgorod in western Russia. Photos and videos showed flames from the Energomash Belgorod plant, a key manufacturer in Russia’s energy supply chain producing equipment for power plants and the oil and gas sector.

“What a moonlit, starry, clear night… Moscow will fall,” Brovdi wrote.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has said that “it is important that the world does not remain silent” about Russia’s murder of at least 30 civilians and injuring of 91 in Kyiv.

Officials issued the revised toll late Thursday. Search and rescue operations were ongoing at several sites, including a partially-collapsed multi-story residential block.

Zelensky told journalists, “[Vladimir] Putin is losing this war….He understands that the only thing he can do is intimidate people and simply kill civilians with missile strikes.”

The President pointed to the gaps in air defense against ballistic missiles, 28 of which were fired on Kyiv in the latest assault.

“If our partners had delivered what they promised on time, I think we could have saved more homes and, frankly, more lives,” he said. He estimated that Ukraine needs at least 140 Patriot missiles to intercept an attack such as Thursday’s, which included 74 ballistic missiles as well as 496 drones.

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelensky added, “We have been discussing licenses for the production of Patriots with the U.S. Administration for a long time already…. We hope for a positive response from President Trump to protect lives.”

The President referred to the PURL program, under which NATO members buy missiles from the US and transfer them to Ukraine:

However, to reliably protect lives, we need our own production. European production here in Ukraine, or jointly with our partners, would also support the US in operations whenever needed.