President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy honored the memory of those killed at the site of a Russian strike on a residential building on the night of July 2 in the Darnytskyi district of Kyiv.
A direct hit by a Russian missile destroyed 64 apartments in the nine-story building. Seventeen residents were rescued, including seven people who were pulled from under the rubble. Unfortunately, four people were killed as a result of this Russian attack on the apartment building.
Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Ihor Klymenko and Head of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine Andriy Danyk reported to the Head of State that rescue operations and search efforts at the sites where homes were hit have been ongoing since night. In total, more than 130 sites were damaged in Kyiv, including 60 residential buildings. An ambulance station, a research institute, a hotel, and businesses also sustained damage. Damage has been recorded at more than 20 locations.
Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia’s leadership could be forced into concessions only if the consequences of the war increasingly affect Russian territory, as he addressed journalists at the site of a partially destroyed residential building in Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district following a massive overnight attack.
Ukraine, he said, would respond to Russia’s large-scale missile and drone strikes carried out in the night of July 2, which targeted multiple cities and caused significant destruction in the capital.
Russia is failing to achieve its objectives on the battlefield and is therefore continuing to strike Ukrainian civilian infrastructure with missiles and drones, Zelensky said, adding that Moscow is constantly improving its aerial attack capabilities.
Responding to a question about whether Ukraine might strike Moscow in retaliation, Zelensky said the country’s position remains focused on what he described as a “just peace.”
“We are for a just peace, a just end to the war. And until that happens — for just responses,” he said.
The president also said Russian leader Vladimir Putin is “physically afraid” to meet with the Ukrainian delegation, despite Ukraine’s openness to negotiations.
“We are open, we are ready to meet. He is physically afraid to meet,” Zelensky said.
Zelensky rejected Russian narratives about occupied Ukrainian territories, including Crimea and eastern Ukraine, saying Putin does not personally understand these regions and relies only on reports from his military leadership.
“An ‘Island Moscow’ can only force him [Putin] to stop the war. All his stories that he knows Crimea, loves it, and needs it are lies. [...] He is fighting to show that he is winning. He needs to sell a big victory to his society. There is no victory. There will be no victory,” the president said.
The president also argued that Putin’s focus is not on territory itself, but on shaping a domestic narrative of success amid the ongoing war.
On the night of July 2, Russia launched another massive strike against Ukraine. As of now, 22 people have been reported killed. The main strike was aimed specifically at Kyiv, but that night there were also Russian strikes on Sumy, Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Kyiv regions, as well as Zaporizhzhia and Cherkasy.
Russia used 74 missiles of various types, almost half of them ballistic, and 496 attack drones, including jet-powered “shaheds.”
“Our partners, primarily the United States and our European partners, need to be more proactive in providing assistance in this regard. Russia has no argument left for its war other than its ballistic missiles, this kind of terror. Putin still intends to “vanquish” residential buildings rather than end this war. And this can be countered both through sufficient supplies of anti-ballistic systems and through much faster work to develop Europe’s own anti-ballistic capabilities,” the President emphasized.
