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Kyiv under missile fire as drone war widens
Summary
An analysis of the days around 1 June 2023, when strikes on the Ukrainian capital coincided with Russian claims of drone attacks on Moscow and other Russian territory.
What did the final days of May and the first day of June 2023 show about the direction of the air war? On 1 June 2023, Russia launched cruise and ballistic missiles at Kyiv, killing three civilians and injuring 12 others.
Kyiv struck again
The missile attack followed a Russian drone attack on Kyiv on 30 May 2023, which killed a civilian and injured several others. Two consecutive days of strikes on the capital meant that Kyiv was being hit with different types of weapon: drones on 30 May, then cruise and ballistic missiles on 1 June.
Claims of strikes inside Russia
On 30 May 2023, Russian authorities said they had intercepted eight drones over Moscow. Later accounts of the episode, often called the 30 May 2023 Moscow drone strikes, say at least eight drones were involved: five were shot down by air missiles and three were suppressed by electronic warfare systems. Russia blamed Ukraine.
On 31 May 2023, Russian authorities said a Ukrainian drone strike had caused a fire at an oil refinery in Krasnodar Krai and had also caused damage in Shebekino, in Belgorod Oblast. The same day, Russian authorities in occupied Luhansk Oblast said Ukrainian shelling in Karpaty had killed five people and injured 19 others.
The south and the port of Odesa
Also on 31 May 2023, Russia said it had destroyed the Ukrainian Navy warship Yuri Olefirenko at the Port of Odesa in a missile strike on 29 May. The claim added a maritime target to a list that already included the capital, occupied territory and Russian border regions.
What the sequence shows
Taken together, the reports from 29 May to 1 June 2023 describe fighting that reached well beyond the front line. Russia said it was dealing with drones over its own capital and in its southern and border regions, while it hit Kyiv and, by its own account, a warship in Odesa. Civilians were killed in the capital on 30 May and 1 June, and Russian authorities reported civilian casualties in occupied Luhansk Oblast on 31 May.
The pattern is one of pressure applied in several places at once, with each side reporting strikes far from the main battlefield. The 1 June attack on Kyiv, with its three dead and 12 injured, was the most lethal single event against the capital in this run of reports.
