A large ballistic missile attack pounded Kyiv early on Sunday (May 24, 2026), authorities said, wounding at least five people after Moscow threatened retaliation for strikes in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.

Loud explosions were heard in the Ukrainian capital, causing a residential building near the government district to shake, while dozens took shelter in an underground metro station in the city centre, according to AFP journalists.

“The capital has come under a mass ballistic missile attack,” Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, wrote on Telegram.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said five people had been wounded and one of them hospitalised.

“There are currently reports of at least 4 locations affected by the attack: Shevchenkivsky, Dniprovsky and Podilsky districts. Fires and damage to residential buildings are preliminarily reported,” Mr. Tkachenko said.

“A strike drone attack is ongoing; the ballistic missile threat remains present. Stay in shelters!”

Ukrainian authorities and the U.S. Embassy had earlier warned of a possible significant attack on the capital after Russia said it would “punish” those responsible for deadly strikes in a part of eastern Ukraine under its control.

Mr. Klitschko said medical teams were called to the Podilsky district in Kyiv’s northwest, where debris fell in a non-residential area.

The attack also sparked a fire near a residential building in nearby Shevchenkivsky, he added.

Missile attack warning

Kyiv had earlier warned it was expecting a major Russian missile attack after its own forces launched a drone barrage in the Russian-occupied east, which Moscow said hit a college dormitory and killed at least 18 people.

Launched overnight on Thursday (May 21, 2026) to Friday (May 22, 2026), the drone salvo — one of Ukraine’s deadliest such strikes in months — also wounded 42 in Starobilsk, in the occupied Lugansk region, trapping people beneath the debris.

Ukraine denied targeting civilians, saying it had hit a Russian drone unit stationed in the Starobilsk area.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday (May 22, 2026) that those responsible would face “inevitable and severe punishment”.

On Saturday (May 23, 2026) both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv issued warnings about the risk of a major Russian airstrike in the coming hours.

“We are seeing signs of preparation for a combined strike on Ukrainian territory, including Kyiv, involving various types of weaponry” including the Oreshnik, a Russian nuclear-capable hypersonic missile,Mr. Zelenskyy said in a post on social media.

The U.S. Embassy said it had “received information concerning a potentially significant air attack that may occur at any time over the next 24 hours”.

Ukraine regularly targets Russian-controlled areas of the country with drones, saying the strikes are retaliation for Russian attacks.

Dormitory death toll

Russia’s Emergency Ministry said on Saturday (May 23, 2026) it had pulled two more bodies from the rubble of the dormitory, taking the death toll to 18.

Video shared by the Ministry showed dozens of rescuers sifting through what remained of a section of the five-storey building.

Most of those killed and missing were young women born between 2003 and 2008, according to a list of casualties published by the Moscow-backed governor of occupied Lugansk, Leonid Pasechnik.

“The region and the entire country share the fate of these people and the pain of their families,” he said on Telegram.

The United Nations said on Friday (May 22, 2026) it “strongly condemns any attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, wherever they occur”, adding it could not verify details due to restricted access to the area.

Starobilsk lies about 65 kilometres (40 miles) from the front line in eastern Ukraine. It was captured by Russian forces in the early months of the offensive in 2022.

Kyiv has recently expanded its drone capabilities and stepped up strikes on undisputed Russian territory, including residential areas and oil export infrastructure.

Moscow has launched mass barrages of missiles and drones at Ukraine almost daily since the full-scale offensive began in 2022, also hitting infrastructure and causing civilian deaths. It denies targeting civilians.

U.S.-led efforts to negotiate an end to more than four years of war have slowed in recent months with Washington’s attention diverted towards its conflict in the Middle East.

Published – May 24, 2026 07:40 am IST

Image used for representative purpose only.
| Photo Credit: AP

Ukraine’s air force said on Monday (September 9, 2024) it shot down six out of eight Russian-launched drones and two out of three missiles during an overnight attack over four Ukrainian regions.

Kyiv authorities said an attack on the city, the fifth in September, had not done damage or caused injuries in the capital.

Also Read:Two NATO members say Russian drones have violated their airspace

Russia has launched hundreds of missiles and drones to attack Ukraine in the past weeks, prompting Kyiv to reiterate to its Western allies the urgent need for air defence and long-range strike capacity to repel the attacks.

On Monday, the air defence shot down aerial targets in the Kyiv region with debris causing two fires in open areas which have since been put out, the regional authorities said.

Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, said air defence shot down two missiles there, in addition to one reconnaissance drone.

Russian shelling of the town of Nikopol in this region injured three people and killed a 16-year-old girl, Ms. Lysak said.

The governor of the central Cherkasy region said air defence destroyed one drone and debris caused a fire which has since been put out.

The energy ministry said Russian forces had also attacked energy facilities in seven regions within 24 hours. The statement did not detail the scale of damage at the facilities.

At least seven explosions rang out on August 26 morning over the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, AFP journalists heard, amid a nationwide alert warning against Russian aerial attacks. File.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday (August 26, 2024) condemned Russia’s overnight and early morning barrage on his country as “vile” and said it involved over 100 missiles of various types and about 100 “Shahed” drones.

Ukraine’s leader said there were deaths and dozens of injuries and that the attack caused a lot of damage to Ukraine’s energy sector.

“Like most previous Russian strikes, this one was just as vile, targeting critical civilian infrastructure. Most of our regions — from the Kharkiv region and Kyiv to Odesa and our western regions,” Mr. Zelenskyy said.

The barrage began around midnight and continued after daybreak in what appeared to be Russia’s biggest attack against Ukraine in weeks.

Russian forces fired drones, cruise missiles and hypersonic ballistic Kinzhal missiles at 15 Ukrainian regions — more than half the country, Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Monday (August 26, 2024) morning.

“The energy infrastructure has once again become the target of Russian terrorists. Unfortunately, there is damage in a number of regions,” Mr. Shmyhal said, adding that Ukraine’s state-owned power grid operator, Ukrenergo, has been forced to implement emergency power cuts to stabilize the system.

He called on Ukraine’s allies to provide Kyiv with long-range weapons and permission to use them on targets inside Russia.

“In order to stop the barbaric shelling of Ukrainian cities, it is necessary to destroy the place from which the Russian missiles are launched,” Shmyhal said. “We count on the support of our allies and will definitely make Russia pay.”

According to Ukraine’s air force, there were multiple groups of Russian drones moving toward eastern, northern, southern, and central regions of Ukraine, followed by multiple cruise and ballistic missiles.

Ihor Polishchuk, mayor of Ukraine’s western city of Lutsk, said a multi-story residential building and an unspecified infrastructure object were hit and one person was killed.

Another person was killed in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, where the attack sparked multiple fires, regional head Serhii Lysak said.

One person was also killed in the southeastern, partially occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, regional head Ivan Fedorov said.

Ukraine’s private energy company DTEK introduced emergency blackouts, saying in an online statement that “energy workers throughout the country work 24/7 to restore light in the homes of Ukrainians.” In neighboring Poland, the military said Polish and NATO air defenses were activated in the eastern part of the country as a result of the attack.