New Delhi: At least nine people were killed and 33 injured, including children, after Russia launched a massive overnight missile and drone attack on Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday. The dead include two people killed when debris struck a five-storey apartment building in the capital’s Solomianskyi district, and seven more killed after homes caught fire in the Darnytskyi district.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, said Russia fired 35 missiles, including 27 ballistic missiles, along with 185 attack drones overnight. Kyiv bore the brunt of the assault, though strikes also hit the Dnipro, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions.
Only one missile intercepted
Of the 27 ballistic missiles fired, Ukraine says it managed to intercept just one. Zelensky said this was “simply because there are no interceptors for the Patriot systems,” and warned that the shortage was only emboldening Russia to keep launching attacks that cost civilian lives.
Seven districts of Kyiv were affected overall. Eighteen residential buildings, a school, several infrastructure facilities and the Lithuanian embassy were damaged, according to Zelensky’s account of the strike.
Fires broke out in multiple parts of the city, and rescue teams worked through the night evacuating residents from damaged apartment blocks. The attack came two days after another major Russian strike that killed at least 10 people and wounded more than 50 across Ukraine, suggesting Moscow has stepped up the pace of its long-range bombardment.
Russia says it targeted military sites
Russia has said its strikes were aimed at Ukraine’s military-industrial facilities and logistics centres supporting Ukrainian forces. Ukraine disputes that framing, pointing to the residential areas where most casualties occurred as evidence that Russia is deliberately targeting civilians.
Zelensky renewed his appeal to Western partners for more Patriot interceptors, arguing that the weapons already exist in allied stockpiles and simply need to be sent. “Anti-ballistic missiles must protect people, not sit in stockpiles,” he said, adding that every package of interceptors saves lives, while every night without them costs more.
He also called for tighter sanctions on Russia’s defence-industrial sector, urging Western governments to sanction entities helping Russia produce ballistic missiles or restore its oil refining capacity, and to close remaining loopholes in G7 sanctions regimes.
US support
The strike comes days after Zelensky met the US president, Donald Trump, in Washington, where Ukraine again pushed for a licence to manufacture Patriot systems domestically and for immediate supplies of interceptor missiles.
Trump had earlier told reporters at the Nato summit in Ankara that Washington would give Ukraine a licence to build Patriots. But in a later interview, he said he was “not sure” whether that would happen, adding, “we’re looking into it.”
Zelensky also spoke by phone with the US vice president, JD Vance on Friday, reiterating some of the same points he had raised with Trump earlier in the week.
Ukraine strikes back inside Russia
Even as it appealed for more air defences, Ukraine continued its own long-range campaign against Russia. Zelensky said Ukrainian drones struck three oil refineries in Russia’s Bashkortostan region, nearly 1,600km from Ukraine.
Ukraine also said it sank a Russian container ship, the Yanina, in the Black Sea using naval drones. Russia’s state nuclear corporation, Rosatom, confirmed the ship had sunk and said all 17 crew members were rescued, but said the vessel had been carrying civilian goods, including frozen food and construction materials, a claim Ukrainian outlets could not independently verify.
The overnight assault and Ukraine’s retaliatory strikes underline how both sides are intensifying long-range attacks even as diplomatic efforts to end the war remain stalled.