Russian Ballistic Missiles Kill 9 in Kyiv, and the Mayor Told the City to Run for Shelters
More than ten explosions rolled across the Ukrainian capital overnight. At least 27 people were wounded, four of them children, in the second deadly barrage on Ukraine in two days.
Russian ballistic missiles slammed into Kyiv overnight into Saturday, killing at least nine people and wounding at least 27 others, including four children, according to the city's military administration and Mayor Vitali Klitschko.
The attack began with a warning that gave residents almost no time. "Explosions in the city. Kyiv is under ballistic missile attack. Stay in shelters!" Klitschko wrote as the first impacts landed. Journalists for Agence France-Presse in the capital counted more than ten consecutive explosions rolling across the city, the sound of interceptors and impacts overlapping in a way that made it impossible to tell which was which from the ground.
Ballistic missiles are the hardest weapon in Russia's arsenal for Ukraine to stop. They arrive on a steep, high-speed trajectory, which compresses the window for an interception to seconds and effectively limits the defense to Patriot batteries. Ukraine has repeatedly said it does not have enough of those batteries or enough interceptor rounds to cover its cities, and the shortage has shaped Kyiv's diplomacy for months. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with President Trump this week to press for licensed domestic production of Patriot systems inside Ukraine, an arrangement that would let Ukrainian factories build the interceptors rather than wait in line for American-made rounds.
Saturday's strike came a day after Russian ballistic missiles and drones killed at least eight civilians elsewhere in Ukraine, and it lands in the middle of the deadliest stretch of the war for noncombatants in years. June 2026 was the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since April 2022, the opening weeks of the full-scale invasion. The pattern since then has been consistent: large mixed salvos of drones and missiles fired at night, aimed at cities rather than the front line, timed to arrive when air defense crews are stretched and residents are asleep.
Ukraine has answered by pushing its own long-range strikes deeper into Russian territory, targeting refineries, rail hubs and the logistics network that keeps Russian units supplied. Following the overnight attacks, the Russian e-commerce company Wildberries reported a fire at a logistics facility in Volgograd, roughly 600 miles from the Ukrainian border. Ukrainian officials have made no secret of the strategy, arguing that if Russia can hit Ukrainian infrastructure at will, the cost has to be made reciprocal.
Emergency crews worked through the early morning at multiple sites across Kyiv, pulling people from damaged residential buildings. The casualty count was still preliminary hours after the last explosion, and city officials cautioned that the number of wounded was likely to rise as rescuers reached apartments in the worst-hit blocks.
Originally reported by CBS News.