Putin Turned 74, Ukraine Got 70 Missiles: At Least 11 Dead, While Birthday Wishes Arrived from Beijing, Minsk and Pyongyang

On the night Vladimir Putin turned 74, Ukraine was counting missiles. According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia fired a total of 70 missiles, many of them ballistic, along with Shahed drones. Kyiv and 12 other regions were attacked, and the main target was once again energy infrastructure. The toll by morning: at least 11 dead and 36 injured.

The worst hit was Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region. A five-storey building collapsed there, five people were killed and 26 injured, including five children. Zelensky warned there may still be people under the rubble.

The list of places hit looks like a map of the whole country. In Dnipro five residential buildings were damaged, in Kremenchuk four apartment blocks, with two people killed and eight injured. In Zaporizhzhia a drone struck an apartment block. Two people died in Kyiv, and two more in Oleksandriia.

Kyiv: the explosions began at 3:15 am

In the capital, the first powerful explosions were heard at around 3:15 am local time. Before that, the Ukrainian Air Force warned that several Russian Tu-95 strategic bombers were approaching the border, and drones had set off towards Kyiv as early as around 9 pm. "The missiles are falling one after another. As far as I can count, there were at least ten to twelve explosions. It's extremely loud in the centre," one reporter on the ground described.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a "non-residential area" was hit in the Obolon district, and warehouses were hit in Podil. Burning missile debris also fell in the Shevchenkivskyi and Darnytskyi districts. Footage from the city shows metro platforms turned into shelters, with tents, sleeping bags and mattresses next to the tracks.

The strike had been announced

Zelensky had urged citizens the day before to take the warnings seriously: he had intelligence that Russia was preparing a massive strike. "A lot depends on our partners, on every country in the world that has the defence capabilities we need. It is very important that there is political will for that, especially in the United States of America and in Europe," he said. After the attack he again asked for help with missiles for the Patriot systems, saying Russian ballistic missiles remain the biggest challenge.

The Balkans remember that sentence well. When a city's protection depends on the "political will" of distant capitals, the warning can arrive on time and the defence can still come too late. In the previous days Russia had also targeted the bridges over the Dnipro in Kyiv, and the night before, drone debris fell on a residential area and set cars on fire.

Birthday wishes from Beijing, Minsk and Pyongyang

In Moscow, meanwhile, the birthday protocol was under way. Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov said the schedule included a series of phone calls with foreign leaders. Written congratulations had arrived by the morning, including from Chinese President Xi Jinping. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov added that for the head of state, his birthday is rarely a real holiday.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko thanked Putin for his commitment to bringing Moscow and Minsk closer and mentioned the building of a union state. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wrote in his telegram that under Putin's leadership Russia had shown its position as a "prosperous country".

In Pryluky, rescuers were searching the rubble; in the Kremlin, the congratulations were piling up. And the list of those sending them - Beijing, Minsk, Pyongyang - says more about who Moscow's friends are today than any official statement about peace.