Russian Strike on Kyiv Kills at Least 13, Injures Dozens

Russian missiles and drones killed at least 13 people in Kyiv overnight Thursday, Ukrainian officials said. Dozens more were hurt, and the city’s military administration counted damage in every district of the capital.

The casualty figures don’t yet line up. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post that 70 of the injured had been hospitalized. Xinhua, citing Ukrainian officials, put the injured at 86 — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a post on X, said more than 90.

Zelenskyy said Russia fired more than 70 missiles overnight, nearly half of them ballistic, plus almost 500 attack drones, including jet-powered Shaheds. Kyiv took the brunt of it. Air defenses knocked down many of the incoming weapons, he said, but not all.

Damage tallies vary too. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry counted more than 20 damaged residential buildings, among them a nine-story apartment block in the Darnytskyi district that partially collapsed. The Kyiv City Military Administration reported hits at more than 30 locations citywide. Zelenskyy cited more than 20 sites — most of them ordinary homes, plus an ambulance station, a research institute, a hotel and businesses.

Roughly 500 rescuers and 96 pieces of equipment were still working at the strike sites, Ukraine’s State Service for Emergencies said.

Zelenskyy said five people were wounded in the Kharkiv region, including a child, and two more in the Kyiv region, where he said Russian strikes also hit civilian infrastructure. Russia also struck the Sumy, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia and Cherkasy regions overnight, he said. He called air defense supplies “an absolute and critical priority” and said Ukraine is counting on a U.S. decision on licenses for Patriot systems.

Moscow calls strike retaliatory

Russia’s Defense Ministry described the attack as a massive retaliatory strike on military-industrial enterprises and fuel and energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the surrounding region. The ministry said it fired long-range precision weapons from the air, land and sea, and sent attack drones.

Among the targets, the ministry named RadioNix LLC, which it said produces control systems for Flamingo, Fire Point-7 and Fire Point-9, Neptune-MD and Klon missiles, and ATLON AVIA Research and Production Company LLC, which it called a major supplier of the An-196 “Lyuty” long-range drone and the Magura UA strike drone. The ministry said it also struck military airfield infrastructure in the Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava, Cherkasy, Chernihiv and Kyiv regions.

In Russia, Kursk Region Governor Alexander Khinshtein said air defenses shot down 158 Ukrainian drones over the region in the previous 24 hours and that the region came under 13 attacks involving drone-delivered explosives.

EU pledges more pressure

Kaja Kallas, vice president of the European Commission, said in a post on X that the EU this week began disbursing 6 billion euros under a 90 billion euro loan to strengthen Kyiv’s defenses, and that she would propose sanctions on more entities supporting Russia’s military-industrial complex.

We keep raising the cost until Russia understands it cannot win. — Kaja Kallas, Vice President of the European Commission

She said EU staff in Kyiv were accounted for.