Nights in Kyiv are getting worse

Russia ramps up drone attacks

Hello and welcome to your weekly briefing on all things Ukraine.

The past seven days felt like a painfully long fever dream, and to be honest, my sleep-deprived brain wouldn’t even clock in much of the news if I didn’t have to write this newsletter. Russia attacked Ukraine with hundreds of drones and missiles on Monday, and then did the same thing again on Tuesday, forcing us to spend both nights in a shelter. Needless to say, nobody got any quality sleep for two days. I couldn’t pull myself together for the rest of the week.

The attack on Monday was among the largest of the war and appeared to target Boeing, the American aerospace giant whose offices were severely damaged, according to the Financial Times. The attack on Tuesday was especially traumatizing because the explosions rocked downtown Kyiv, close to where I live, an area that’s usually well-protected due to its proximity to government sites. At one point, a Russian drone was flying towards our apartment building, its buzzing getting louder with every second, as if it was about to crash right into us. I jumped out of bed and sprinted outside with my daughter, genuinely convinced for a moment that we were running for our lives. I look back at that terrifying experience, and more, in my latest essay “Things I’m afraid of”.

As my family and I emerged from the shelter at 4:35 that morning, the sky was covered in smoke. Authorities said the debris fell in 16 locations, igniting fires that were put out by helicopters throughout the day. Residential buildings, a business center, and even Kyiv’s St. Sophia Cathedral, a UNESCO landmark, were damaged. In Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa, which came under attack too, the Russians badly damaged a maternity hospital. Three people were killed and twelve more were injured in both cities.

The photo I took in Kyiv on the morning of June 10, 2025, after a Russian attack.

A view from Washington. As Russia ramps up its attacks, the US intends to reduce its military assistance to Ukraine in the upcoming defense budget. "This administration takes a very different view of that conflict,” the US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said during a congressional hearing on June 10. “We believe that a negotiated peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation's interests.” Since Donald Trump’s reelection, the US has not only not provided any new aid packages to Ukraine but redirected some of the intended Biden-era assistance to the Middle East. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky told ABC News recently that 20,000 anti-drone missiles intended for Ukraine were instead sent to American forces in the Middle East.

Israel and Iran. Speaking of the Middle East, tens of thousands of Ukrainians living in Israel find themselves in the crosshairs of the escalating war between Israel and Iran. On Saturday, an Iranian missile attack killed five Ukrainian citizens, including three children, in the city of Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. Thousands of Ukrainians have moved to Israel since the outbreak of the full-scale Russian invasion. There also used to be a surprisingly sizable Ukrainian community of at least 800 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, which I wrote about during my time at the Kyiv Post and later at the Kyiv Independent. Their fate, unfortunately, is much harder to trace, but at the very least four of them have been killed in the enclave, three of them children.

Reality check. Speaking at Chatham House in London, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte gave a sobering warning about European Security. "Russia could be ready to use military force against NATO within five years. Let's not kid ourselves: We are all on the Eastern flank now," Rutte said. This matches the assessment of Germany, Estonia, Poland, and Denmark, whose officials have shared similar warnings. Rutte also highlighted that Russia produces as much ammunition in three months as NATO does annually. "Putin's war machine is speeding up, not slowing down," Rutte said.

POWs come home. To end on a good note, Ukraine and Russia held four prisoner exchanges over the past week, swapping hundreds of young, wounded, and seriously ill soldiers, some of whom had been in captivity since 2022. Ukraine also repatriated 6057 bodies of fallen Ukrainians soldiers from Russia. The swaps and repatriations were negotiated at the last round of peace talks in Istanbul two weeks ago. Check out this heartbreaking video of Ukrainian POWs coming home, shared by Zelensky:

Other stories I’m following…

From Kyiv Independent, Satellite images show expansion at 5 Russian nuclear sites near Europe

From the Wall Street Journal, Israel Takes Control of Iran’s Skies—a Feat That Still Eludes Russia in Ukraine

From Politico, Europe's frontier countries ready their hospitals for war

I’ll be back later this week.

Cheers,

— Yours Ukrainian