Russian missile barrage kills nine in Kyiv amid air-defence shortfall
A Russian attack involving missiles and drones struck Kyiv before dawn, killing nine people and injuring more than 30, while Ukraine struggled to intercept ballistic missiles due to limited Patriot systems.
Russian missiles and attack drones hit five districts of Kyiv in the early hours of Saturday, killing nine people and wounding over 30 others, Ukrainian authorities said. The strike involved 35 missiles and 185 drones, with only one of 27 ballistic missiles intercepted, reflecting a shortage of Patriot air-defence missiles, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported.
The heaviest casualties occurred in the Darnytskyi district, where seven people died and 14 were injured, according to the state emergency service. In Solomianskyi, a five-storey apartment building was damaged and two residents were killed, while fire crews also contained a blaze in a non-residential building in Shevchenkivskyi. Damage was reported in two additional districts, and Lithuania’s foreign minister said its embassy in Kyiv was hit.
Russia’s defence ministry described the operation as a large-scale strike on military-industrial and logistics sites in the capital. The attack follows a previous Russian strike two days earlier that killed at least 10 people elsewhere in Ukraine, highlighting Kyiv’s limited capacity to intercept ballistic missiles.
President Zelenskyy reiterated his request for additional missile interceptors, stating that each package of interceptors saves lives. He said he had discussed the issue with U.S. officials, including Vice President JD Vance, and had met with President Trump at the White House. Zelenskyy indicated that a plan to grant Ukraine a licence to produce its own Patriot missiles was expected, and he also met with Lockheed Martin executives.
President Trump later said at a Cabinet meeting that no agreement had been reached to transfer the technology, describing it as a difficult decision.
Outside the capital, a Russian airstrike in Kherson killed one person and injured 19. Ukraine reported that its drones struck three oil refineries in Russia’s Bashkortostan region overnight, part of an ongoing long-range campaign against Russian energy infrastructure.