Kyiv death toll climbs to 30 as rescuers dig for three still buried under a nine-story block

The death toll from Russia’s overnight combined strike on Kyiv climbed to 30 on the morning of 3 July, after rescuers pulled three more bodies from a collapsed apartment entrance in the capital’s Darnytskyi district, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (DSNS) said.

“Kyiv: three more bodies have been recovered. The death toll has risen to 30,” the service reported on Telegram. The figure stood at 27 at midday on 2 July, alongside nearly 90 injured; Ukraine’s National Police later put the number of injured above 110.

Three people remain unaccounted for, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. “Three more people are currently out of contact, and their fate remains unknown. The search continues,” he wrote, adding that the rescue operation at the destroyed nine-story residential building was still under way.

Russian forces struck Ukraine overnight on 2 July with a large-scale combined barrage of attack drones and air-, land- and sea-launched missiles of various types. Ukraine’s air defenses downed 524 of the 570 incoming targets, but 25 ballistic missiles and 12 attack drones hit their marks, DSNS said. Kyiv was the primary target.

The worst damage was in Darnytskyi district, where a section of the nine-story building collapsed; President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a missile destroyed 64 apartments there. Damage was recorded across roughly 30 locations citywide. Mayor Vitali Klitschko declared 3 July a day of mourning in the capital.

Moscow’s Defense Ministry described the assault as retaliation for Ukrainian long-range strikes on Russian oil refineries, which have triggered fuel shortages inside Russia. Ukraine says it hit a major refinery in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod oblast the same night.