KYIV, Ukraine — A massive Russian missile and drone assault struck the Ukrainian capital overnight, killing at least eight people, injuring more than 70 others and igniting fires across Kyiv in what officials described as the most devastating attack on the city in 2025.
Ukrainian emergency services and military officials said the early-morning barrage damaged residential buildings, administrative facilities, garages and critical infrastructure across multiple districts. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said rescue efforts were ongoing, particularly in the heavily hit Sviatoshynskyi district on the city’s western edge, where rescuers worked under floodlights through the rubble of at least two damaged buildings. Officials initially reported nine deaths, but later revised the confirmed death toll to eight.
Six children were among the injured, and search-and-rescue crews were still combing debris for possible survivors, according to Ukrainian emergency services. “Mobile telephones are heard ringing beneath rubble. The search will continue until it becomes clear that they have got everyone,” the agency said in a statement.
Photos and video shared on Telegram showed teams climbing ladders along scorched facades and calling out from apartment to apartment as smoke billowed from shattered structures. Forty fires were reported across Kyiv, including blazes in garages and administrative buildings. Falling metal fragments from downed missiles also struck vehicles parked on city streets.
The attack lasted for more than six hours, with an air raid alert in effect across the capital throughout the night. “There was the air raid siren, we did not even have time to dress to go out of the apartment,” said Kyiv resident Viktoria Bakal. “One blast came after the other, all windows were blown out, doors, walls, my husband and son were thrown to the other side.”
According to Ukraine’s air force, Russia launched a total of 145 attack drones and 70 missiles — including 11 ballistic missiles — in the overnight onslaught. Ukrainian air defense units reported intercepting 112 aerial targets. Despite these efforts, significant damage was inflicted across multiple regions.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko confirmed that the missile and drone attacks extended beyond Kyiv to seven other regions. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, authorities reported at least 14 drone strikes and 10 missile attacks during the night. Mayor Ihor Terekhov said damage was widespread, impacting multi-story residential buildings, a school, a polyclinic, private homes, a hotel complex and industrial facilities. One person was hospitalized.
In the Zhytomyr region west of Kyiv, emergency responders were injured in what officials described as a repeat Russian strike on rescue teams attempting to extinguish fires caused by an earlier bombardment. One emergency worker was reported injured.
Ukraine’s state railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, said several rail infrastructure sites were damaged in Kyiv and Kharkiv regions. Two railway workers were hurt, but the company confirmed that train services were continuing as scheduled, despite damage to technical tracks and administrative buildings.
Further south, in the industrial city of Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said 14 multi-story buildings suffered damage to balconies and windows, but no casualties were reported.
The overnight assault came at a critical diplomatic juncture in the war, now in its third year following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Pressure is mounting on both Kyiv and Moscow from President Donald Trump’s administration to demonstrate concrete steps toward a peace agreement. Trump has signaled that U.S. support for brokering a ceasefire could be withdrawn if no progress is made.
Ukrainian officials, however, underscored that the overnight strikes undermined those diplomatic efforts. Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s Deputy Head of the Presidential Office and a senior diplomat, condemned the missile barrage on social media. “These brutal strikes prove once again that the obstacle to peace is not Ukraine. It is Russia,” Sybiha posted on X.
Meanwhile, talks held in London on Wednesday, which involved British, French and German diplomats, yielded what those countries called “significant progress” toward a common path forward. However, the meeting was overshadowed by a last-minute decision by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio to cancel his attendance. The absence cast doubt on the cohesion of the Western response, even as Trump appeared to shift blame onto Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for stalled negotiations after Zelenskyy reaffirmed that Ukraine would not recognize Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea as part of any peace deal.
As Kyiv continues to recover from one of the most lethal bombardments of the year, rescue operations remain underway across the capital. Authorities have warned that further Russian strikes remain possible in the coming days.
