KYIV — Russian missiles and attack drones struck Kyiv before dawn Saturday, killing nine people and wounding more than 30 in an intensive barrage that set fires and damaged apartment buildings across the city.
“This was a horrific night for Kyiv,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on social media as emergency crews worked through smoke and rubble to pull residents from damaged homes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack involved 35 missiles and 185 attack drones. He added that only one of 27 ballistic missiles was intercepted, blaming a dwindling supply of Patriot interceptors — the primary system Ukraine can use against ballistic threats.
Explosions began around 1:30 a.m. local time. Firefighters reported gutted buildings, charred cars, broken windows and collapsed roofing. Images from the scene showed a covered body near burned-out vehicles and blood on a crosswalk amid scattered glass and debris.
The Darnytskyi district suffered the heaviest toll, where authorities said seven people were killed and 14 hurt. In Solomianskyi, falling debris and a fire damaged a five-story apartment building; crews rescued 35 residents from upper floors but two people died and children were among the injured. Emergency services also reported fires and damage in the Shevchenkivskyi district and two other neighborhoods. Lithuania’s foreign minister said his country’s embassy in Kyiv was damaged when missiles struck nearby.
Russia’s Defense Ministry described the operation as a large-scale strike on Kyiv’s military-industrial and logistics targets, according to Russian media reports.
The attack follows a separate Russian strike two days earlier that killed at least 10 people elsewhere in Ukraine and comes amid Kyiv’s urgent appeals for more missile interceptors. Zelenskyy has repeatedly pressed U.S. leaders for additional ballistic-missile interceptors, arguing each shipment would save lives. He said he spoke Friday with Vice President JD Vance and has held talks with Lockheed Martin executives about Patriot systems.
At a NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump had signaled U.S. willingness to allow Ukraine to build its own Patriot systems. But speaking at a Cabinet meeting at Camp David this week, Trump said no agreement had been reached and described transferring that technology as difficult.
The strikes were not limited to Kyiv. A separate airstrike in the southern city of Kherson killed one person and wounded 19, according to Ukraine’s emergency services. Kyiv also continued long-range attacks against Russian energy infrastructure: Zelenskyy said Ukrainian drones struck three oil refineries in Russia’s Bashkortostan region overnight, about 1,000 miles from the front lines, part of a campaign that has strained Russian fuel supplies.
Zelenskyy also reported that a sanctioned Russian container ship sank in the Black Sea after a Ukrainian drone strike. Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear firm that owns the vessel’s operating subsidiary, told Reuters the ship had been carrying only frozen food and construction materials.
Ukrainian officials and rescuers said the latest strikes underscored the urgency of restoring Kyiv’s capacity to intercept ballistic missiles as the city continues to face nightly attacks that endanger civilians and critical infrastructure.