Russian Drone Strike Kills 37 Near Kyiv, Zelenskyy Vows Accountability

(MENAFN) Ukraine reported Saturday that a Russian drone strike on a warehouse near the capital Kyiv left 37 people dead, marking one of the deadliest single attacks in the region in recent months.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration, initially put the toll at 27 dead and 42 injured, including four children, in a strike on the Bucha district, though he did not immediately specify the exact location. He also reported damage to roughly 50 residential buildings before later revising the death toll upward to 37.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that a drone struck a warehouse in the village of Myla, in the Bucha district, triggering an explosion Friday evening that also damaged nearby infrastructure. Among the dead was Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka rural community, Zelenskyy said, adding that response efforts were underway.

"More than 370 people have already been evacuated, and the evacuation is ongoing. ... Those who allowed this to happen must be held accountable for their decisions," Zelenskyy said.

He said investigators had opened criminal proceedings on "charges of official negligence," noting: "There are regulations in place – ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas." Zelenskyy also vowed that Russia will "face a response for everything it is doing."

Separately, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a two-year-old girl was killed and five others wounded when a Russian drone came down in the capital's northern Obolonskyi district.

Ukraine's Air Force said its air defenses intercepted 233 of 267 drones Russia launched overnight, and reported that Russia also fired an Onyx cruise missile and an Iskander-M ballistic missile, though it gave no further details on where those weapons struck.

Russia's Defense Ministry, for its part, claimed its forces hit logistics hubs in Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight, saying it struck an "ammunition depot" in Myla belonging to Ukrainian defense technology firm Fire Point, where it alleged "components and boosters for FP-1/FP-2 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles were stored."

Strikes reported at Odesa, Mykolaiv ports
Russia also said it struck facilities at the port of Izmail in the southern Odesa region and at the port of Mykolaiv. Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said one person was killed and three others injured in the strikes on the region.

"As a result of the attack, five trucks with grain were completely destroyed by fire, three more trucks were damaged," Kiper said, adding that firefighters had extinguished the blaze.
Acting Mykolaiv Governor Heorhii Reshetilov reported damage to energy infrastructure that left more than 300,000 subscribers without power.

Independent verification of the competing claims remains difficult given the ongoing war. Russia and Ukraine have increasingly struck each other's logistics hubs, ports and energy infrastructure in recent months, with both sides denying they deliberately target civilian infrastructure and insisting their strikes hit military targets or facilities tied to military activity.

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