At least 27 people were killed when a Russian drone hit a warehouse in Myla, on Kyiv’s western outskirts, overnight, triggering a massive blaze and a series of explosions, Ukrainian authorities said.
The facility appeared to contain “explosive objects”, prompting prosecutors to open a criminal-negligence investigation.
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Officials have not disclosed what type of facility the warehouse was or what materials were being stored there.
Russia and Ukraine have stepped up long-range attacks against each other in recent months, with strikes increasingly igniting fires and pushing civilian casualty figures to record levels.
“Unfortunately, as things stand, 27 people are known to have died. And this figure may not be final,” Kyiv region governor Tymur Tkachenko said.
Taras Didych, the mayor of the village of Dmytrivska, was among those killed, he added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said ammunition must not be kept close to residential areas.
“There are regulations in place – ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas. Appropriate conclusions will certainly be drawn,” Mr Zelensky wrote in a post on X.
Ukraine’s prosecutors have launched an investigation into the incident.
“On 28 August at around 8:10pm, an unmanned aerial vehicle… fell on or struck the grounds of an enterprise in the town of Myla,” the office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general said.
Myla lies on the western edge of the Kyiv metropolitan area.
“A large-scale fire broke out on the enterprise’s grounds, and detonation began,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Investigators said they would examine “the legality of the… storage of explosive objects and materials on the enterprise’s grounds”, along with whether the unnamed company held the “necessary permits and approvals”.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said it was regrettable that authorities had failed to learn a “lesson” from a deadly attack in July on a munitions depot in Vyshneve, near Kyiv.
That earlier investigation found serious shortcomings at the state-owned company, which had failed to meet required standards despite residential buildings being located nearby.
“In the fifth year of the full-scale invasion, making the same mistakes over and over is criminal negligence,” he wrote on Telegram.
“Everyone responsible, without exception, must face severe punishment so that such situations never happen again.”
