Death toll rises to 38 following Russian strike on arms depot near Kyiv

The death toll from a Russian strike on an arms depot near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, has risen to 38, marking the war’s deadliest attack so far this year, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Emergency workers on Sunday continued to extinguish the resulting fires and explosions that began on Saturday in the village of Myla, Zelenskyy said in a post on Telegram, adding that bomb disposal teams were also working to clear the site.

He said 20 people were injured, while four remained missing.

The attack was the second to hit a munitions depot near Kyiv within two months, with officials voicing anger that arms were still being stored so close to residential areas.

Ukrainian prosecutors have opened an investigation into alleged criminal negligence.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces were preparing to launch “massive strikes” against Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, following a Ukrainian drone campaign against Wildberries, dubbed “Russia’s Amazon”, as well as the country’s oil and gas sector, which Kyiv says both funds and directly fuels Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

During the war’s previous winters, Russia systematically battered Ukraine’s power grid, depriving thousands of heat and light in freezing temperatures. Ukrainian officials have repeatedly warned that the coming winter may prove the most challenging since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

The Ukrainian military said it launched overnight attacks on an oil refinery in Russia’s Leningrad region and a military base in the Krasnodar region.

One person was killed in a separate Ukrainian attack on a mine in the Russian-controlled part of the Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, Moscow-installed Governor Leonid Pasechnik said.

United States-led diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, Europe’s deadliest since World War II, have been at a standstill for months.

Russia has demanded sweeping territorial and political concessions from Ukraine, which Kyiv has ruled out as tantamount to capitulation.