Rescuers work at the site of an apartment building hit by a Russian drone and missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Dnipro, Ukraine on April 25, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

People take shelter inside a metro station during a Russian missile and drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine on February 22, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack targeting regions across Ukraine early on Saturday (September 20, 2025), killing at least three people and wounding dozens more, Ukrainian officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said attacks took place across nine regions, including Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhzhia, Poltava, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy and Kharkiv.

“The enemy’s target was our infrastructure, residential areas and civilian enterprises,” he said, adding that a missile equipped with cluster munitions struck a multi-story building in the city of Dnipro.

“Each such strike is not a military necessity but a deliberate strategy by Russia to intimidate civilians and destroy our infrastructure,” he said in a statement on his official Telegram.

Mr. Zelenskyy said he expected to meet U.S. President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly next week. He also said the first ladies of Ukraine and the United States would likely hold separate talks focused on humanitarian issues involving children.

His comments, which he made on Friday (September 19, 2025), were embargoed until Saturday morning.

At least 26 people were wounded in the attack in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, local governor Serhii Lysak said. Several high-rise buildings and homes were damaged in the eastern city of Dnipro.

In the Kyiv region, local authorities said there were strikes in the areas of Bucha, Boryspil and Obukhiv. A home and cars were damaged. In the western region of Lviv, Gov. Maxim Kozytsky said two cruise missiles were shot down.

Russia launched 619 drones and missiles, Ukraine’s Air Force said in a statement. In total, 579 drones, eight ballistic missiles and 32 cruise missiles were detected. Ukrainian forces shot down and neutralised 552 drones, two ballistic missiles and 29 cruise missiles.

“During the air strike, tactical aviation, in particular F-16 fighters, effectively worked on the enemy’s cruise missiles. Western weapons once again prove their effectiveness on the battlefield,” the Air Force said in a statement.

Russia denies violating Estonia’s airspace

Russia’s Defence Ministry denied its aircraft violated Estonia’s airspace, after Tallinn reported three fighter jets crossed into its territory on Friday without permission and remained there for 12 minutes.

The incident, described by Estonia’s top diplomat as an “unprecedentedly brazen” incursion, happened just over a week after NATO planes downed Russian drones over Poland, heightening fears that Moscow’s war on Ukraine could spill over.

In an online statement published early on Saturday, Moscow stressed its fighter jets had kept to neutral Baltic Sea waters more than 3 kilometres (1.8 miles) from Estonia’s Vaindloo Island in the Gulf of Finland.

“On September 19, three MiG-31 fighter jets completed a scheduled flight from Karelia to an airfield in the Kaliningrad region,” it said, referencing the Russian enclave sandwiched between Polish and Lithuanian territory.

“The flight was conducted in strict compliance with international airspace regulations and did not violate the borders of other states, as confirmed through objective monitoring,” the statement said without providing details about the monitoring operation.

On Friday, Estonian officials said Tallinn had summoned a Russian diplomat to protest, and also moved “to start consultations among the allies” under NATO’s Article 4, which states that parties would confer whenever the territorial integrity, political independence or security is threatened.

Mr. Zelenskyy hopes to finalise security guarantees in New York meetings. Mr. Zelenskyy said that Ukraine and its partners have laid the groundwork for long-term security guarantees and that he hopes to gauge how close they are to finalising such commitments during next week’s meetings in New York.

He said European nations are prepared to move forward with a framework if the United States remains closely engaged. He noted that discussions have taken place at multiple levels, including among military leadership and general staffs from both Europe and the U.S..

“I would like to receive signals for myself on how close we are to understanding that the security guarantees from all partners will be the kind we need,” Mr. Zelenskyy said.

Mr. Zelenskyy said sanctions against Russia must remain on the table if peace efforts stall, and that he plans to press the issue in talks with Trump.

“If the war continues and there is no movement toward peace, we expect sanctions,” he said, adding that Mr. Trump is looking for strong steps from Europe.

Published – September 20, 2025 04:55 pm IST

Emergency workers respond at the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital hit by Russian missiles, in Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, July 8, 2024. A major Russian missile attack across Ukraine on Monday killed at least 31 people and injured 154, officials said, with one striking a large children’s hospital in the capital of Kyiv, where emergency crews searched the rubble for victims.
| Photo Credit: AP

A major Russian missile attack across Ukraine killed at least 20 people and injured more than 50 on Monday, officials said, with one missile striking a large children’s hospital in the capital, Kyiv, where emergency crews searched rubble for casualties.

The Russian barrage targeted five Ukrainian cities with more than 40 missiles of different types, hitting apartment buildings and public infrastructure, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a social media post.

Strikes in Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, killed 10 people and injured 37, in what the head of city administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, said was a massive missile attack.

At the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, rescuers were searching for people under the rubble of a partially collapsed wing of the facility, Mr. Zelenskyy said, adding that the number of casualties was not yet known.

Vsevolod Dorofieiev, the senior instructor of a volunteer medical unit, said some people had died but he did not say how many or whether they were children or adults.

On social media, Mr. Zelenskyy said: “It is very important that the world should not be silent about it now and that everyone should see what Russia is and what it is doing.”

The attack comes on the eve of a three-day NATO summit in Washington, which will look at how to reassure Ukraine of the alliance’s unwavering support and offer Ukrainians hope that their country can come through Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.

At the children’s hospital, a two-story building was partly destroyed. On the hospital’s main 10-story building, windows and doors were blown out and walls were blackened. Blood spattered the floor in one room.

Medical personnel and local people helped shift the rubble as they searched for children and medical workers who could be trapped underneath. Volunteers formed a line, passing stones and debris to each other. Smoke still rose from the building, and volunteers and emergency crews worked in protective masks.

The attack forced the hospital to shut down and evacuate. Some mothers carried their children away on their backs. Others waited in the courtyard with their children as calls to doctors’ phones rang unanswered.

Elsewhere in Kyiv, the heaviest Russian bombardment of the capital in almost four months killed seven people and injured 25, officials said. The daylight attacks included Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, one of the most advanced Russian weapons, the Ukrainian air force said. The Kinzhal flies at 10 times the speed of sound, making it hard to intercept.

City buildings shook from the blasts. An entire section of a residential multistory building in one district of Kyiv was destroyed, officials said. Three electricity substations were damaged or completely destroyed in two districts of Kyiv, energy company DTEK said.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andrii Yermak, said the attack occurred at a time when many people were in the city’s streets.

Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said official assessments of the attack’s consequences were still being carried out.