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Russian Forces Launch Mass Missile and Drone Attack on Ukraine on Putin's Birthday
Confirmed
In Short: 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).
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).
Kyivindependent reported that at least 26 people were killed and over 100 injured in the attack, while HuffPost UK described it as a 'massive strike' and 'another act of terror.' Both outlets agreed that the attack coincided with Putin's birthday.
Multiple explosions were first heard in Kyiv at around 3:15 a.m., and the attack prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to call it a 'birthday gift' from the Russian army, according to both Kyivindependent and HuffPost UK.
Zelensky said, 'Today, as a 'birthday gift' to Putin, the Russian army destroyed a residential building in Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region,' in a post on social media. He also noted that the attack was a 'massive strike' on Ukraine, as reported by HuffPost UK.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha used Putin’s birthday to highlight Russia’s military losses and call for greater international pressure on Moscow. According to the Kyiv Post (Ukraine), Sybiha wrote on X, 'On Putin’s birthday, Russian generals brought him his favorite present: war crimes,' emphasizing that Russia had lost 1.6 million troops without achieving any strategic goals.
The Kyiv Post reported that 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. This figure, however, has not been independently verified.
Sybiha added that 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. He also noted that Russia’s economy is declining and its global influence is waning because Putin 'refuses to end this war,' according to the Kyiv Post.
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,' as reported by the Kyiv Post.
The attack also prompted international condemnation, with European Parliament Vice-President Nicolae Ștefănuță saying Politkovskaya’s 'fearless pursuit of the truth' had made her 'a beacon of hope for those fighting for justice and human dignity in Russia,' according to the Kyiv Post.
Despite the differing numbers of casualties reported by Kyivindependent and HuffPost UK, both outlets agreed that the attack was a significant military operation launched on Putin’s birthday, aimed at Ukrainian cities.
What this adds
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.
Background
The accounts agree that Russian drones struck Kyiv, setting cars ablaze and damaging vehicles, and that Ukraine is responding to Moscow's persistent attacks on its infrastructure.
The UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait issued separate statements denouncing the attack on the Taiba power distribution station in Madinah, which Saudi authorities said was carried out by the Iran-backed Houthis early on Tuesday.
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.
What's still developing
- She was stopped by a security guard, according to Russia.
- 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.
- 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.
- A fifth child was also killed by the Russian strike, Ukraine's state emergency service (DSNS) said as of 7:13 p.m. local time.
- "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.
- The “Sputnik moment” was the US’s realisation, after the Soviet Union launched the first satellite in 1957, that the USSR had taken the lead in space technology and science.