War-weary Kyiv residents defiant over Russian threat of new strikes

Conflict-weary Kyiv residents are shrugging off Moscow's threat of a wave of heavy strikes against the Ukrainian capital as nothing new after years of war, displaying a defiant confidence in carrying on.

Russia said on Monday it intended to launch "systematic strikes" on targets in Kyiv and urged foreigners and diplomats to leave.

But despite one of the war's heaviest bombardments of Kyiv two days ago, residents interviewed by Reuters stayed determined.

"I think that those threats are manipulation: more aimed at sowing panic among the public," Oleksandr Korzh, a former serviceman, 43, told Reuters in Kyiv.

"I will stay in Ukraine, and I will stay in Kyiv."

Russia has attacked Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, regularly since its full-scale invasion in 2022.

A heavy missile and drone bombardment on Sunday killed three people, injured more than 90 and damaged around 300 sites across the city, Ukrainian authorities said.

A strike on May 14 killed 24 civilians in Kyiv.

"Honestly, our people are tired of this, and I am also tired of this war," said Viktoriia Paramonova, 21, a barista in a cafe damaged in Sunday's strikes.

RETRIBUTION

Russia said Sunday's attack was in retribution for a Ukrainian drone strike on Friday on a student dorm in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine's military said it hit a Russian drone unit.

Ukraine has been sending long-range drones deep into Russia to strike oil and gas facilities in an attempt to stifle resources underpinning its war machine.

Kyiv has also targeted military logistics and command and control centres inside Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory.

Mykola Bielieskov, from Ukraine's National Institute For Strategic Studies, doubted Russia could sharply increase the tempo and scale of air attacks.

"So for combined attacks at the scale of 13-14 May or 23-24 May they need to accumulate missiles as there is no spare capacity, people and money in Russia to produce much more than the rate of production of missiles attained in 2024-25," he said.

Russian threats were "bluster," Bielieskov said, to draw attention away from setbacks. On the battlefield, its advances have slowed in recent months, while Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure have forced it to curb production.

Kyiv residents said they were tired but knew what to do in case of new attacks.

"We take them (Russian threats) seriously because, basically, they are constantly bombing us. They bombed us all winter and they are still bombing us now," Kateryna Kozechenko, 38, told Reuters.

"Nothing new, everything's as usual – we are ready. We always go to the shelter."

-Writing by Anna Pruchnicka in Gdansk; Editing by Andrew Cawthorne/Reuters