Kyiv Suffers Massive Russian Drone and Missile Barrage: Fires, Injuries, and Widespread Damage

Kyiv, Ukraine – The Ukrainian capital endured one of the largest combined drone and missile attacks of the war overnight on May 24, 2025, as Russian forces unleashed a barrage of 14 ballistic missiles and 250 Shahed drones, resulting in widespread destruction, multiple fires, and at least 15 reported injuries, including two minors.

Details of the Attack

• The assault began late on May 23 and continued into the early hours of Saturday, with explosions and the sound of machine gun fire echoing across the city as air defenses engaged incoming threats.
• Kyiv’s air raid sirens sounded for more than seven hours, prompting thousands of residents to seek refuge in subway stations and underground shelters.
• The Kyiv City Military Administration described the event as “one of the biggest combined missile and drone attacks on the capital,” with debris from intercepted projectiles falling across at least six city districts.

Impact on Residential Areas

• Fires broke out in several locations, including a multi-storey residential building in the Obolon district, where at least five people were wounded and four floors sustained extensive damage.
• In the Dniprovskyi district, a drone struck an apartment complex, igniting a fire and injuring residents, while additional fires were reported in the Solomyanskyi and Sviatoshynskyi districts.
• Numerous homes, businesses, and vehicles suffered damage from direct strikes or debris, with shattered windows and destroyed balconies reported by local residents.

Ukrainian Response and Air Defense

• Ukrainian air defense systems managed to shoot down six of the 14 ballistic missiles and 128 drones, while electronic warfare measures neutralized another 117 drones.
• Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko and military officials confirmed that anti-aircraft units were “actively engaged” throughout the night, as waves of drones and missiles targeted the city from multiple directions.

Civilian Accounts and Official Statements

• Residents described a night of terror, with families huddled in shelters and children traumatized by the explosions. “The balcony is totally wiped out, as well as the windows and the doors,” said Yurii Bondarchuk, a local resident in Obolon, as firefighters battled flames nearby.
• President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attack, stating, “With each such attack, the world becomes more certain that the cause of prolonging the war lies in Moscow,” and called for stronger international pressure on Russia.
• Ukrainian officials labeled the assault as “terrorism,” emphasizing the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure.

Wider Context

• The attack on Kyiv came just hours after Russia and Ukraine began their largest prisoner exchange since the start of the full-scale invasion, swapping 1,000 detainees each in a rare moment of cooperation.
• Russian strikes also targeted other Ukrainian cities, including Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, and Zaporizhia, as part of an escalating campaign of nightly aerial attacks.

The scale and intensity of the latest assault highlight the ongoing escalation in the conflict, with Ukrainian authorities continuing to assess the full extent of the damage as emergency crews work to restore safety and services across the capital.