Kyiv Drone Strike on Ammunition Depot Kills 38, Survivors Return to Rubble
A Russian drone strike on a Kyiv-area ammunition depot killed 38, sparking secondary explosions that levelled homes. Survivors are cleaning up as officials investigate.
In the village of Myla, just outside Kyiv, Liudmyla Polianychko picked her way through the shattered remains of her home on Sunday, two days after a Russian drone strike on a nearby ammunition depot triggered a chain of explosions that killed 38 people.
Debris covered her young daughter's bedroom, while charred artillery shells and belts of ammunition lay scattered across the lawn. "But we're alive, and thank god for that," the 48-year-old entrepreneur said.
The Friday attack hit a military facility storing artillery shells, mines, drones and other ammunition, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who described keeping such materials near civilian homes as a "crime" and blamed official negligence for the scale of the devastation.
The initial strike set off secondary explosions that set the neighbourhood ablaze, forcing the evacuation of hundreds of residents. By Sunday, first responders had extinguished most of the fires, but Zelenskiy warned that contamination in the area remained significant and that the cleanup would likely take time. Rescuers were still searching for four people reported missing.
Polianychko described hearing a series of blasts before being showered with glass. Sheltering in the bathroom with her daughter, a wall collapsed on them. She said she had no idea the warehouse was nearby. "We didn't think that there could be something like that," she said, gesturing at the unexploded shells on her lawn.
This was the second strike in two months on a Kyiv-area ammunition warehouse that caused secondary blasts killing local residents. Zelenskiy said criminal cases have been opened into the matter.
The attack was part of an extended Russian air campaign against Kyiv and the surrounding region. Jet-powered drones have swarmed the capital and nearby towns for four consecutive days, killing residents and damaging homes. Russia has escalated its air war with increasing numbers of ballistic missiles and high-speed drones that Ukrainian air defences struggle to intercept.
Zelenskiy said Russia launched nearly 2,000 strike drones, more than 1,600 bombs, and 31 missiles at Ukraine this week alone. "We are seeking just responses to every Russian strike and crime," he said. "They will certainly come."