Russian strikes kill at least eight in Kyiv

Russia launched a major overnight missile and drone attack on Kyiv, killing at least eight people and injuring dozens just hours after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow was preparing a “massive” strike.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said the attacks hit about three dozen locations across the capital overnight and into Thursday morning. He said at least eight people were killed and 25 injured. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko put the number of injured at 34, writing on Telegram that the city was under attack from ballistic missiles and drones.

“The enemy is once again deliberately targeting residential areas and killing civilians. We have very serious damage and a significant number of casualties, including children,” Tkachenko said in the early hours of Thursday.

Explosions shook buildings across Kyiv as air defenses fired into the night sky. The BBC reported hearing drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, while journalists with the AFP news agency in the central and eastern districts of the city reported more than a dozen explosions as Ukraine’s Air Force warned that ballistic missiles were approaching.

Multiple fires broke out across the capital. Damage was reported at an ambulance station, leaving at least one person critically injured, the BBC reported. Klitschko said people were trapped in a damaged nine-storey residential building and that a large section of a high-rise apartment block collapsed after a direct strike.

Several neighbourhoods were evacuated. Images shared on unofficial Telegram channels showed residents crowding into underground stations for shelter, Al Jazeera reported. AFP journalists saw people moving through the streets toward shelters carrying sleeping mats under their arms.

The attack came shortly after Zelenskyy cut short a visit to Ireland, saying fresh intelligence indicated that Russia was preparing to strike Ukraine. Speaking on Wednesday at a joint news conference in Dublin with Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin, he said: “Today, we have information about another massive Russian strike; we have relevant intelligence data.”

In a post on X, Zelenskyy said: “Immediately after this conversation, I am returning to Ukraine.” He urged Ukrainians to heed air raid alerts and protect their families.

“I urge our people to be especially careful, to protect themselves, their children, and, of course, their families,” he said. “We know that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has been preparing a massive strike against Ukraine for some time. That is exactly the threat we are facing tonight.”

Zelenskyy also accused Russia of “completely refusing to end the war” launched in February 2022, despite what he described as Ukrainian efforts through “all possible official and unofficial channels” to convey readiness for “meetings and meaningful negotiations”. He said Putin “sees only further aggression against Ukraine and against other neighbours and Europe as a whole”.

Poland, a NATO and European Union member that borders Ukraine, briefly activated fighter jets during the attacks as a preventive measure. Its military said the move was aimed at securing and protecting airspace, especially near threatened regions. Poland later called the jets back and said no airspace violation had been recorded. There were no reports of attacks on Polish territory.

The BBC described the strikes as Russia’s first large-scale missile and drone attack on Ukraine in more than two weeks.

The assault comes as fighting continues in eastern Ukraine. The BBC reported that Russian troops recently advanced into Kostyantynivka, one of Ukraine’s last key bulwarks in the east, while Ukrainian commanders say they have recaptured more territory this year than they have lost and disrupted Russian supply lines between the Russian border and occupied Crimea. Russia controls approximately one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, mostly seized in the first months after its full-scale invasion in February 2022.