Ukrainian drone strike kills three in Russian city of Tula

A Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian city of Tula killed three people and wounded three others, including a one-year-old child, in a residential area far from the front line. The strike landed in the Tula urban district, about 200 kilometres south of Moscow, underscoring how the war’s reach is widening on both sides of the border.

Regional governor Dmitry Milyayev said the attack hit civilian housing, adding to the toll on families already living under repeated air alerts and drone threats. The deaths in Tula came amid a broader exchange of strikes that has increasingly targeted cities, power systems and landmarks as well as military infrastructure.

At the same time, Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine killed at least nine people and set fire to Kyiv’s historic Dormition Cathedral at the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery. The monastery complex is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the clearest symbols of Ukrainian spiritual and cultural history, making the damage feel like more than a physical wound. It was also a direct blow to a place that has anchored memory, faith and national identity through centuries of upheaval.

Ukrainian officials said the Russian strikes left more than 140,000 people in Kyiv without electricity, widening the civilian burden from immediate casualties to the daily strain of disrupted power, heating and basic services. In the capital, the blackouts and the fire at the cathedral reflected a pattern that has become familiar across the country: strikes that do not stop at the battlefield, but ripple through homes, hospitals, places of worship and public life.

The escalation followed hours after Donald Trump spoke by phone with Vladimir Putin, and it fit into a larger cycle of attacks that both sides have presented as retaliation. The United Nations said an earlier June assault involved 656 long-range drones and missiles, including 30 ballistic missiles, three cruise missiles and 33 long-range drones that struck 38 locations, a scale that illustrates how quickly the violence has intensified. In that context, the deaths in Tula and the fire at the Dormition Cathedral were not isolated events but part of a war pressing harder against civilians, infrastructure and the symbols people use to understand who they are.