At least 14 people were killed and dozens of others were injured in a "huge" Russian attack that targeted Kiev and the surrounding area, overnight and into the early hours of Thursday morning, according to what Ukrainian authorities reported.
The strikes damaged a hospital, a school, residential buildings and a number of warehouses across the capital, according to local authorities.
The CNN team heard several explosions and saw smoke rising over the city, while the air raid warning continued for hours. Reuters video footage showed huge fires lighting up the capital's night sky.
Ukraine has been relatively successful in intercepting the large numbers of drones that Russia uses in its large-scale attacks. However, in recent weeks, Moscow has been exploiting to a large extent Kiev's depleted stocks of interceptor missiles for the Patriot systems, which are the missiles needed to confront faster-moving ballistic missiles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, in an interview with CNN earlier this month, that his country has only 10% of the interceptor missiles it urgently needs from the United States and its other allies.
Zelensky added in the interview: “This year we have two and a half times fewer interceptor missiles than we had in 2025. While Russia has twice the number of ballistic missiles it had per month before.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense said, on Thursday, via the Telegram application, that its forces carried out a “massive attack using high-precision weapons” targeting military facilities, a transportation and logistics center, and warehouses in the city of Kiev and the surrounding area.
“The Russians have been preparing for a long time, collecting various types of projectiles, cruise missiles and drones to inflict as much damage as possible on civilian infrastructure,” Zelensky said on Thursday.
Rescue workers were able to extract two people from under the rubble, while they continued to deal with the repercussions of the attack, which caused damage to more than a dozen sites across the capital, according to emergency services. Firefighters were working to put out huge fires.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that the windows of a children's hospital in the Solomyansky district of the capital were shattered as a result of the attack.
Outside of Kiev, Russia also targeted gas facilities in the Chernihiv region, and a border crossing with Moldova in the Odessa region, according to Zelensky.
Other drone attacks and bombing also targeted the regions of Zhytomir, Kherson, Kharkiv and Donetsk. The total number of deaths in Ukraine during the past 24 hours reached 23 people, while 132 others were injured across the country, according to reports of regional military departments.
While Moscow continues to launch almost nightly attacks on Ukraine, Kiev also intensified its attack, launching more than 800 drones into Russia on Sunday, in one of the largest air attacks since the outbreak of the conflict.
The official Russian "TASS" agency said that the attack was the largest of its kind launched by Ukraine with drones since the beginning of the year, noting that a large number of these drones targeted the Moscow region, where many members of the Russian elite reside.
