Russian ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv killed at least nine people early Saturday, in the latest sign that the assault on Ukraine’s capital is intensifying. Local officials said at least 23 others were injured as the strikes set off fires, cut power in some areas and left rescue crews searching through damaged buildings.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the city came under a ballistic missile attack, and AFP reported more than 10 explosions. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said seven people died in the Darnytskyi district, where 14 others were injured, including two children. In the Solomyanskyi district, officials said two people were killed and eight were hurt, also including two children, after a five-storey residential building was partly destroyed.
Klitschko said a residential building in Shevchenkivskyi was partially destroyed and people were trapped inside. The emergency service also reported that fires broke out across the city and that emergency workers were responding to multiple sites. The toll adds to a recent pattern of deadly ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv that has pushed the city’s defenses to their limits.
The strikes came as Moscow has stepped up those attacks, prompting President Volodymyr Zelensky to say Ukraine urgently needs interceptor missiles. He has argued that Patriots are a top priority because they are the only weapon in Ukraine’s arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles. With supplies running low, the issue has become a central part of Kyiv’s appeal to Washington.
The latest attack also follows a wider wave of violence two days earlier, when a suspected Russian cruise missile landed in Poland during a large strike on Ukraine. That assault killed at least eight people, including six members of one family in a village near Kryvyih Rih. The episode underscored how the war’s spillover risk remains a concern for Ukraine’s neighbors as Russian strikes continue.
