Russia carried out the largest aerial strike of its 2022-25 war on Ukraine overnight, unleashing about 539 drones and 11 missiles against Kyiv and several other regions in a seven-hour bombardment that began late on 3 July. Ukraine’s Air Force said the swarm included more than 330 Iranian-designed Shahed drones and described the salvo as a record for a single attack. Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported at least 23 people injured in the capital, 14 of whom were hospitalised; emergency crews later recovered one body from the rubble of a strike site. Air-defence units claimed they destroyed 478 incoming targets, but falling debris and direct hits ignited fires across six of Kyiv’s ten districts. Kyiv’s military administration said roughly 40 apartment blocks, five schools and kindergartens, a medical centre and passenger-rail infrastructure were damaged, forcing trains onto diverted routes and delaying services by up to two hours. Air-raid sirens sounded for about eight hours, sending families into underground shelters as acrid smoke blanketed the city. The assault came only hours after a telephone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin that, according to both leaders, produced no breakthrough toward ending the conflict. Kyiv linked the timing of the strike to that conversation and renewed appeals for tighter sanctions and additional air-defence systems, especially after Washington paused deliveries of Patriot interceptors and other munitions. Moscow said it had targeted military and energy facilities, but Ukrainian officials labelled the attack a deliberate terror campaign against civilians.