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Russia slams kyiv in mass missile drone attack on putins 74th birthday

6:13 AM ETConfirmed

World Desk

In Short: The attack coincided with Putin's birthday, prompting Ukrainian officials to use the occasion to highlight Russia's military losses and call for greater international pressure on Moscow.

On the night of October 7, as Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated his 74th birthday, Russian forces launched a mass missile and drone attack on Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, according to reports from Kyivindependent (Ukraine) and HuffPost UK (United Kingdom).

Multiple explosions were first heard in Kyiv at around 3:15 a.m., with at least 26 people killed and over 100 injured in the attack.

In Pryluky, a residential building was hit by a Russian cruise missile, killing at least 22 people, including five children, and wounding at least 54, including seven children, according to Ukraine's state emergency service (DSNS).

Zelensky also noted, 'What Russian generals fail to tell Putin is that he is not winning this war and never will.'

Ukraine’s General Staff released an interim tally of Russian army losses on Putin’s birthday, estimating approximately 1.55 million personnel losses since the start of the full-scale invasion.

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha used Putin’s birthday to highlight Russia’s military losses and call for greater international pressure on Moscow, writing on X, 'On Putin’s birthday, Russian generals brought him his favorite present: war crimes.'

Sybiha added that Russia had lost approximately 1.6 million troops killed and injured without achieving a single strategic goal of its invasion.

The attack also prompted international condemnation, with the U.S. and Europe condemning Russia’s massive attack on Ukraine, specifically the missile strike on Pryluky that killed 22 people.

Ukraine’s air force said it had succeeded in shooting down five ballistic missiles and 39 cruise missiles and more than 100 drones, including 46 of Russia's jet-powered drones which have caused so much damage in recent weeks.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un congratulated Putin on his birthday, pledging Pyongyang’s “invariable support” for Russia and calling Moscow’s war against Ukraine a “sacred war of justice.”

The attack prompted international condemnation, with Ukrainian President Zelensky saying it was one of Russia's 'most vile strikes' and suggested the Russian military had carried it out as a 'birthday gift' to Vladimir Putin.

The figures are Ukraine’s estimates and have not been independently verified.

Background

What's confirmed

• "Today, as a 'birthday gift' to Putin, the Russian army destroyed a residential building in Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region," President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on social media.
• Vladimir Putin launched a “massive strike” on Ukraine overnight just as the autocrat prepared to celebrate his birthday.
• Moscow seems to be hoping battle fatigue from Ukraine will help it secure a victory more fitting to Putin’s push to seize the whole country, though Kyiv continues to hold its own.
• Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also used Putin’s birthday to highlight Russia’s military losses and call for greater international pressure on Moscow.
• “What Russian generals fail to tell Putin is that he is not winning this war and never will,” Sybiha wrote, adding that Russia had lost 1.6 million troops killed and injured without achieving a single strategic goal of its invasion.
• The figures are Ukraine’s estimates and have not been independently verified.
• The General Staff released the tally on Putin ’s 74th birthday, framing the figures as a message to the Russian president.
• Chernihiv Oblast Governor Viacheslav Chaus said that on Putin's birthday, he hopes "the Russian dictator ends up in custody in The Hague or in hell." Pryluky resident Halyna Osovyk, 55, woke up, and soon after, her flat was shaken by an explosion, she told the Kyiv Independent.

What's still developing

• She was stopped by a security ‌guard, according to Russia.
• He said the “ultimate present” for Putin would be a dock in The Hague, referring to Ukraine’s plans to establish the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression Against Ukraine.
• His delegates travelled in person to see Putin in Moscow and then Zelenskyy in Kyiv last month to discuss terms of a ceasefire.
• Follow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official.
• The two countries significantly deepened their military ties after Putin’s June 2024 visit to Pyongyang, when they signed a comprehensive strategic partnership agreement containing a mutual defense clause.
• Chayko, who turned 55 in the last week of July, was reportedly having a belated birthday party on August 1 at a high-end Italian restaurant in central Moscow.
• Assassinated Russian reporter Anna Politkovskaya, shot dead outside her Moscow home in 2006, had "predicted" Russia's trajectory under Vladimir Putin, her editor told AFP as Russians marked the 20th anniversary of her death.
• Asked about that in 2021, Putin said his agencies "did everything to uncover these crimes".
• In brief: Twenty years after her murder in Moscow, her reporting still exposes the violence that binds Putin’s Russia to its imperial past.
• Russia, she said, was "hurling back into a Soviet abyss".
• As the West embraced Putin in the early 2000s -- a strongman leader cautiously welcomed after the chaos of the previous decade -- Politkovskaya warned Russian journalists would have to show "total servility to Putin" or face death or prison.
• "The missiles are falling one after another. At least 10-12 explosions from what I can count. It's pretty loud in the city center," the Kyiv Independent's Tim Zadorozhnyy reported.

Sources

• Kyivindependentlink
• Warpbeatlink
• BBClink
• AFPlink
• Huffingtonpostlink
• Kyivpostlink
• Al Jazeeralink
• Englishlink
• Themoscowtimeslink
• WarpBeat — background on Russian Forces Launch Mass Missile and Drone Attack on Ukraine on Putin's Birthday link
• WarpBeat — background on Russian Drone Attack Hits Kyiv, Sets Cars Ablaze link
• New York Post — video link