In a large-scale overnight assault that ranks among the most violent attacks on Ukraine’s capital in recent months, Russian forces have killed at least 25 civilians and left dozens more wounded, Ukrainian authorities confirmed early Thursday.
Ukraine’s Air Force reported that the assault was a coordinated combined strike that saw nearly 500 Iranian-designed Shahed drones and more than 70 ballistic and cruise missiles launched across multiple regions of Ukraine, with Kyiv bearing the brunt of the aggression from three separate directions. While Ukrainian air defense teams successfully intercepted the vast majority of incoming projectiles, 33 enemy weapons managed to reach their targets, almost exclusively hitting civilian residential neighborhoods across the capital.
One local resident, Iryna Moskaeva, shared her harrowing experience of escaping her damaged apartment building, saying that powerful explosions shattered all the glass in her unit and initially trapped her and her young children inside before they could find a route out to safety.
Emergency response teams confirmed that strikes hit dozens of locations across Kyiv, including multiple multi-story apartment blocks, a working ambulance station, and other pieces of critical civilian infrastructure. As of Thursday morning, search and rescue operations are still ongoing, with first responders working carefully through piles of rubble to pull out any survivors, and authorities have warned that additional casualties are likely to be found as the work progresses.
Photos and witness accounts from the attack show thousands of Kyiv residents sheltered overnight in deep underground metro stations, as air raid sirens wailed continuously across the city for more than six hours. Many families brought only the essentials with them as they rushed to safety, after being woken by the first explosions across the capital.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky released an official statement shortly after the attack, condemning what he called a deliberate, targeted act of terror against ordinary Ukrainian civilians. He added that entire apartment buildings had been completely leveled by the strikes, and repeated his urgent call for Western military allies to accelerate and expand deliveries of advanced air defense systems to help Ukraine intercept more incoming Russian attacks before they hit populated areas.
In a statement released by Russia’s Ministry of Defense, officials claimed the strikes were a retaliatory action in response to recent cross-border attacks on Russian territory, and asserted that all targets hit were military or energy-related infrastructure sites. However, on-the-ground reporting and official Ukrainian data confirms that 100% of the projectiles that hit targets in Kyiv struck civilian locations, with ordinary residents bearing the full cost of the destruction.
Local emergency management officials have not yet finalized the death toll, and say casualty numbers are expected to climb as rescue teams continue clearing debris from damaged and destroyed buildings across the city.