Kyiv Targeted by Overnight Russian Drone Attack Ahead of NATO Summit

Russian kamikaze drones targeted several Ukrainian cities overnight, just hours before NATO leaders are due to begin a summit in Vilnius focused on supporting Kyiv against Moscow's full-scale invasion.

Minor damage but no casualties were reported in the capital Kyiv. The port city of Odesa also targeted, while air alerts were raised in the Mykolaiv, Kherson, Kirovograd, Poltava, Sumy, and Kharkiv regions.

“The enemy attacked Kyiv from the air for the second time this month,” Kyiv's military administration said on its Telegram account.

The attack used Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones launched from the south, it said, likely from Russia's Krasnodar region.

“All detected air targets moving in the direction of Kyiv were destroyed by the forces and means of our air defense,” the administration added, without specifying how many drones had been downed.

Kyiv's interior ministry said drone wreckage had been located at an undisclosed location in the Kyiv region.

“Windows and outbuildings of private households were damaged,” it said, adding there was no immediate information on victims.

In Odesa, Ukraine said the drones had targeted grain facilities at a southern port in the region, which houses three maritime terminals key to an expiring export agreement between Moscow and Kyiv.

"The air defence forces did not allow the enemy's plan to attack the grain terminal of one of the ports of Odesa to be realised," the regional governor Oleg Kiper said in a statement.

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The Ukrainian military said it had downed a total of 26 Russian attack drones in the latest barrage.

Kyiv, which had been relatively spared from attacks since the beginning of the year, faced frequent nightly aerial raids in May.

On Tuesday, NATO leaders will grapple with Ukraine's membership ambitions at their summit in Vilnius – their determination to face down Russia boosted by a breakthrough in Sweden's bid to join the alliance.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to head to the Lithuanian capital to make the case that Kyiv has earned the right to join when the Kremlin's invasion ends.