Horrifying Ukraine pics show cruel wrath of Russian strikes that killed 21 people

Heart-wrenching images captured the horrific aftermath of Russia’s missile and drone barrage on Kyiv early Monday that killed at least 21 civilians — as first responders dug for bodies in mountains of rubble for victims.

Other chilling photos from the Ukrainian capital showed massive fires ripping through apartment buildings and petrified families scrambling to rescue children from the wreckage. 

One particularly haunting image shows a devastated mother clutching her young daughter to her chest while shielding her eyes in a debris-strewn street after one of Moscow’s missiles slammed into their family’s building. 

The onslaught over the last several days underscored Kyiv’s desperate need for American-made Patriot interceptors, one of the few anti-air weapons that can stop Russia’s ballistic missiles. Kyiv’s stores of Patriots are critically low, leaving Ukraine’s cites vulnerable, Ukraine said.

Emergency crews were seen combing through the rubble, collapsed concrete and twisted metal, searching for survivors among buildings whose upper floors had been blown apart. 

“These are residential buildings. Places where people slept and lived their ordinary lives,” Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s City Military Administration, wrote on Telegram Monday. 

Chilling video appeared to show human remains trapped beneath slabs of concrete inside one demolished building, where rescuers had already pulled an entire family – two parents and their child – from the rubble on Monday, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.

The latest attack – which damaged roughly 30 buildings across Kyiv and left at least 56 people injured, according to Ukrainian authorities – came just days after another Russian strike killed 31 people in the capital, the deadliest attack on the city so far this year. 

The barrage also unfolded just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that another large-scale attack was imminent – and on the eve of a NATO summit, where he is expected to meet with President Trump about a renewed push for peace. 

The Ukrainian military’s inability to shoot down any of the 23 missiles fired at Kyiv on Monday – and just four of the 49 missiles launched at the city by Russia so far in July – underscores the country’s critical shortage of American-made Patriot ground-to-air interceptors. 

Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded with allies for more Patriot missiles – the only weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal that can take out Russia’s high-speed ballistic missiles. 

He urged NATO members to make “strong decisions” regarding Ukraine’s air defense capabilities during the summit, which will kick off in Ankara, Turkey, on Tuesday. 

“It is critically important that the world – first and foremost the United States and our European partners – come out of the NATO Summit in Ankara with strong decisions in support of our air defense, and thus the protection of ordinary people’s lives,” Zelensky wrote on X.

“As long as Patriot missiles sit in our allies’ stockpiles, Russia is only encouraged to keep ‘destroying ‘vanquishing’ residential buildings. The U.S. and Europe have the power to stop this terror,” he continued.

Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 37 other missiles fired at areas surrounding Kyiv and more than 90% of the 351 drones launched during Monday’s strike, while Russia’s Defense Ministry boasted that it had carried out the “massive” strike. 

Moscow has stepped up strikes on Kyiv in retaliation for Ukraine’s recent long-range drone strikes.

Russia said it shot down more than 500 Ukrainian drones.

Kyiv’s military said on Monday it had struck three Russian oil refineries – including the country’s largest facility in Omsk, more than 1,500 miles away – as well as two of the Kremlin’s “shadow fleet” vessels in the Sea of Azov.

More than 16,000 Ukrainians have been killed in the war so far, according to the United Nations. 

Ukraine’s use of low-cost drones — including long-range models that can strike deep into Russia — has changed the momentum in the war and slowed Putin’s military advance to a near halt.

With Post Wires.