Over 50,000 people crowded into Kyiv’s subway stations overnight, according to the Kyiv Metro, as Russian drones and missiles hit residential buildings in the capital. At least 27 people were killed and more than 90 injured.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, warned that the toll would probably climb as rescue teams worked through the night, sifting rubble and searching for trapped residents. Mayor Vitali Klitschko called it the “most massive enemy attack.” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described a “night of horror.”
What hit the city
The Ukrainian Air Force counted 570 aerial objects, nearly 500 of them drones. Russia also launched 24 Iskander ballistic missiles and about 50 cruise missiles of various types at Kyiv. Four of the missiles were Zircon hypersonic guided missiles, which were developed mainly to target ships.
The assault lasted some 11 hours. Tkachenko said three dozen locations across the city were damaged.
Klitschko said a hotel roof caught fire on central Shevchenko Boulevard. A direct hit from a Russian projectile caused six floors of an apartment building to partly collapse. Reuters video showed emergency crews searching the rubble of the nine-story building.
Beyond the capital
Zelenskyy said other regions were struck too. “Five people were wounded in the Kharkiv region, including a child, and two more in the Kyiv region, where civilian infrastructure was also targeted. Overnight, Russia also struck the Sumy, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, and Cherkasy regions,” he wrote.
He had cut short a stay in Dublin, Ireland, after intelligence reports suggested a major Russian assault was likely. After the attack he visited a partly destroyed apartment building in Kyiv and vowed to retaliate. He repeated Ukraine’s urgent request for air defense supplies, especially Patriot missiles. “We also very much count on a decision by the United States regarding licenses for Patriots and other forms of cooperation,” he said. “These are the kinds of steps that can stop this war and prevent attacks like this.”
Russia’s stated reason
Russia said the strikes were retaliation for Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow earlier in the week. That Ukrainian assault came less than two weeks after Ukraine hit a major oil refinery in the Moscow region, in the biggest drone attack on the Russian capital since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.
A Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis published Wednesday put Russian battlefield casualties between February 2022 and June 2026 at approximately 1.4 million, with between 400,000 and 450,000 fatalities. Ukrainian casualties in the same period were estimated at between 525,000 and 625,000, with between 125,000 and 150,000 fatalities. By some estimates, the study said, over 90% of Russian casualties came from drone attacks.
