Ukraine says it struck three Russian oil refineries
“This was a horrific night for Kyiv,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a social media post.
The attack began around 1:30 a.m. local time, according to Ukrainian officials. Explosions woke residents as doors were blown off hinges, windows shattered, and roofing collapsed in residential buildings. Firefighters spent the night dousing gutted buildings and pulling residents from damaged and burning apartment blocks.
Zelenskyy said Russia launched 35 missiles and 185 attack drones in the barrage. He noted that only one of 27 ballistic missiles was shot down, attributing the low interception rate to the country’s dwindling supply of Patriot air defense missiles, which are the only weapon capable of stopping such projectiles.
The bombardment hit five areas of Kyiv. The heaviest toll came in the Darnytskyi district, where seven people died and 14 were injured, according to Ukraine’s state emergency service. In the Solomianskyi district, falling debris and a blaze damaged a five-story apartment building. Crews evacuated 35 residents from upper floors. Two people died there, and children were among the injured. Firefighters also contained a blaze in a non-residential building in the Shevchenkivskyi district, and officials reported damage to commercial and residential property in two additional districts.
Lithuania’s foreign minister said his country’s embassy in Kyiv sustained damage when missiles hit nearby.
Russia’s Defense Ministry described the attack as a large-scale strike on military-industrial and logistics sites in Kyiv, according to reports in Russian state media.
The shortage of Patriot interceptors has been at the center of Zelenskyy’s recent appeals to U.S. President Donald Trump. Writing on social media after the latest strikes, Zelenskyy said “every package of ballistic missile interceptors saves the lives of our people,” and insisted that each night without them leads to further deaths.
Zelenskyy said he spoke by phone Friday with Vice President JD Vance and reiterated topics discussed during his meeting Tuesday with Trump at the White House. Zelenskyy emerged from that meeting saying he expected to move ahead with a plan that would allow Ukraine to build its own Patriot missiles. He also held talks with Lockheed Martin, the defense contractor that makes the systems.
At a NATO summit in Ankara last month, Trump indicated the U.S. would permit Ukraine to manufacture Patriot systems. Speaking at a Cabinet meeting at Camp David on Friday, however, Trump said “we have not agreed to that,” adding that officials were discussing the possibility but that it’s “a hard thing to give away that kind of technology.”
Saturday’s attack followed a separate Russian strike two days earlier that killed at least 10 people elsewhere in Ukraine. The strikes are part of what Ukrainian officials describe as an expanded effort by Moscow to capitalize on Kyiv’s lack of interceptors capable of bringing down ballistic missiles.
A separate Russian airstrike killed one person and wounded 19 in the southern city of Kherson, Ukraine’s emergency services said.
Ukraine, meanwhile, continued its own long-range campaign against Russian energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy said Ukrainian drones struck three oil refineries overnight in Russia’s Bashkortostan region, about 1,000 miles from the front lines.
A sanctioned Russian container ship was also sunk in the Black Sea following a Ukrainian drone strike, Zelenskyy said. Rosatom, Russia’s state nuclear firm, which owns the vessel’s operating subsidiary, said the ship had been carrying only frozen food and construction materials, according to Reuters.