Russian forces unleashed a fresh wave of drone strikes across the Kyiv region, damaging more than a dozen apartment buildings and warehouses in the second consecutive day of aerial attacks, Ukrainian officials said.
Air raid warnings in Kyiv yesterday effectively brought the Ukrainian capital to a standstill for 15 hours, the
- Advertisement -
Foreign Ministry said, squeezing economic activity and severely disrupting civilian life more than four years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour.
In areas nearer the front line, the ministry added, alerts lasting even longer have become part of daily life.
In the southern Black Sea region of Kherson, glide bombs that struck a combined heat and power plant a day earlier forced the facility to close. Officials warned that residents could face a winter of prolonged power cuts and urged those able to leave to consider moving elsewhere.
Russian attacks in the Kyiv region damaged 14 warehouses, 16 private homes, three apartment buildings and 16 vehicles, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said.
The State Emergency Service said a second drone struck one site after emergency crews arrived — a tactic known in military terms as a “double tap”, designed to hit first responders.
A column of smoke from a fire in a Kyiv suburb rises behind the Motherland Monument
The strikes killed one person and injured two, officials said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had overnight hit a warehouse in the Kyiv region containing Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missiles and fuel used for rocket boosters.
Ukrainian officials did not immediately corroborate the claim, and The Associated Press was unable to independently verify it.
Several recent strikes have damaged warehouses in Kyiv and the surrounding region, including sites holding books, food and other consumer products.
The attacks continued into the morning, prompting Mr Tkachenko to call on residents to remain in shelters or other secure locations and follow air raid warnings.
Russia is sending waves of small, high-speed jet-powered drones in an effort to paralyse the capital, Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defence Council, said.
“The goal is to exhaust air defences and the population,” he wrote on social media.
Authorities in the Kyiv region reported deteriorating air quality after the strikes and advised residents in some areas to keep windows shut and avoid spending unnecessary time outside.
Four Russian glide bombs destroyed a Nova Poshta postal sorting centre in the northern Sumy region, while a drone struck one of the company’s depots in the Kyiv region, the postal operator said.
In Kherson, where Russia controls about 70% of the territory, officials appealed to tens of thousands of people to relocate to safer parts of the country amid the risk of extended disruptions to electricity and heating this winter.
“Kherson may be without electricity and heat not for hours or days, but for a long time. And we need to prepare for this now,” Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said in a social media post late yesterday.
Read more: Russia intensifies daytime drone strikes on Ukrainian cities
Russia has stepped up its assault on critical infrastructure in Kherson, dropping 170 glide bombs on the region since 1 July — a total exceeding the number used during the first six months of the year, Mr Prokudin said.
Over the past two months, Russia has also launched more than 1,700 attack drones, increasingly deploying jet-powered Shahed and Gerbera drones against vital infrastructure. Smaller drone attacks reached 6,500 in the past week alone, he said.
People who choose to leave will be offered assistance with evacuation, transport, resettlement and social services, Mr Prokudin said.
Ukraine’s Economy Ministry is lowering its forecast for GDP growth in 2026 as Russian strikes restrict exports, particularly grain shipments through Black Sea ports.
Growth had been expected to reach about 1.3% this year, but the attacks are now projected to reduce that figure to 0.8%, economy minister Oleksandr Kravchenko said, according to the local news agency Interfax-Ukraine.
Ukraine’s economy expanded by 0.6% in the first quarter before recovering to record modest growth by the end of June, Mr Kravchenko said this week.
But damage to energy and transport infrastructure, along with blockades affecting ports, is continuing to constrain further expansion, he said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 164 drones at the country overnight.
The statement made no reference to missiles, which are commonly used alongside drones in Russian aerial assaults.
A 61-year-old man was killed and seven other people injured when a Russian glide bomb struck the northern Sumy region, Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy regional military administration, said.
Russian forces dropped eight guided aerial bombs on Sumy in a single evening
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences had destroyed 512 Ukrainian drones overnight across 18
Russian regions, as well as over Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed, and parts of the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck the Slavneft-Yanos refinery in Russia’s Yaroslavl region overnight, sparking a fire as Kyiv continued targeting Russia’s oil industry.
The facility is located about 1,000 kilometres from Ukraine’s border, the General Staff said.
It produces petrol, diesel and aviation fuel, as well as fuel oil, lubricants and other petroleum products, the statement added.
A Ukrainian drone attack in the Yaroslavl region this morning killed one person and injured 27 others, governor Mikhail Yevrayev said.
Ten people were hurt when falling drone debris struck a bus, he said.
He said the attack also hit unspecified “industrial infrastructure”, residential neighbourhoods and unidentified retail sites.
In the Moscow region, which encircles but excludes the Russian capital, a drone struck a supermarket, damaging the store and shattering windows at a nearby outpatient clinic, governor Andrei Vorobyov said on Telegram.
In Crimea’s port city of Sevastopol, a drone caused major damage to a five-storey residential building, according to Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor.
Four people were injured, he said.
Mr Razvozhayev released images showing a fire-blackened building with windows blown out and balconies heavily damaged.
