Russian Drone Strikes on Kyiv Region Kill Four as Bombardment Intensifies

Russian drone attacks on the Kyiv region killed four people and wounded eight, officials said, as Moscow's forces kept up a round-the-clock bombardment of targets across Ukraine that left at least seven people dead and more than 50 others wounded.

In the capital, a woman was killed on Monday afternoon when a strike hit the Shevchenkivskyi district, according to the Kyiv city military administration. The same strike damaged a building of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, the latest cultural landmark in the city to be hit.

Russian forces also struck apartment buildings, offices, data centers, a pharmaceutical company and gas stations in Kyiv, officials said.

Rescuers battled fires at a building in the capital, where thick smoke rose from the strike site and debris fell from the damaged structure as ambulances arrived. The attack near a medical facility was the second on the city within the hour, following an earlier strike on an academic building in the center.

Attacks on Kyiv have escalated and intensified over the past six weeks, with relentless air raids and explosions heard across the city within a 24-hour period. Officials and observers point to Russia's introduction of a new generation of jet-powered Shahed drones, which travel too fast for Ukraine's interceptors to bring down. Defense companies are racing to develop interceptors capable of hitting this new class of drone.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for the mass production of interceptors that have been tested against the jet-powered Shaheds and have managed to down some of them, though officials acknowledge that scaling up manufacturing will take time.

Residents in the capital describe exhaustion with the sustained attacks, with people seen crying, calling home and checking on loved ones. Officials warn that the coming winter cold will make it even harder for Ukrainians to endure strikes of this kind.