Kyiv's Podil district seen from the Dnipro River. Photo: Wikimedia Commons (CC0).
Russian forces launched a barrage of ballistic missiles at Kyiv late on Friday, just hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that Moscow was preparing a new large-scale attack on Ukraine's energy grid, its bridges across the Dnipro River and civilian infrastructure. At least two people were injured in the capital, and explosions rocked the city through the night.
Ukraine's Air Force reported detecting at least six ballistic missiles heading toward the capital shortly before 11 p.m. local time on Friday, prompting air raid alerts across Kyiv and several other regions. A series of explosions followed, according to journalists from the Kyiv Independent on the ground. A fresh wave of missiles targeted the city shortly after 1 a.m. on Saturday, with more blasts reported at around 3 a.m.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said debris had struck a five-story apartment building in a western district of the capital and warned that Russian forces were hitting infrastructure with ballistic missiles. "Explosions in the Kyiv suburbs. The enemy is hitting infrastructure with ballistic missiles," he wrote on Telegram, urging residents to remain in shelters. The city's military administration said two people were injured and were receiving medical care, and that a building housing a kindergarten had been damaged. A third person was injured in the surrounding Kyiv region, where a Russian jet-powered drone struck a home in the Brovary district.
A warning delivered hours before the attack
Earlier on Friday evening, Zelenskyy had told Ukrainians that intelligence showed a new Russian strike was being prepared. "We have intelligence at this time that Russia is preparing new strikes on energy, on bridges across the Dnipro, on civilian infrastructure," he said in his nightly video address, adding that the air force and the armed forces as a whole were preparing to defend the country.
The president repeated his plea for allies to supply Ukraine quickly with interceptor missiles for its US-made Patriot air defence systems. "Interceptors for Patriot systems are needed. Every agreement matters. Every single day in terms of supplies is extremely important. And we strongly urge our partners not to postpone deliveries," he said.
The plea comes amid what Ukrainian officials describe as a month-long delay in US approval for deliveries of Patriot and NASAMS air defence systems. The US State Department said last week it had approved the sale of 500 Patriot PAC-3 missiles to Ukraine for an estimated $2.1 billion, but the missiles are not expected to be delivered until the early 2030s.
Kyiv's energy grid and bridges under sustained attack
The overnight attack is the latest in a weeks-long Russian campaign against Ukraine's power system. Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities have faced near-constant attacks for several weeks, with mass blackouts and the worst water supply shortages of the full-scale war, according to Ukrainian officials. Overnight on November 2-3, Russia launched what state grid operator Ukrenergo called one of the largest attacks on the energy sector, hitting facilities more than 20 times in 24 hours and knocking three DTEK thermal power plants offline.
The bridges across the Dnipro have also become a repeated target. Since October 1, Russian drones have struck Kyiv's Pivdennyi (South) Bridge and later the North Bridge, and two major bridges in the capital were hit late last month. Russia's chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, told President Vladimir Putin on October 16 that Russian forces had begun specifically targeting strategic bridges, railway infrastructure and data centres across Ukraine.
Zelenskyy said on Friday that Ukraine would keep striking Russia's oil refining sector in response to the attacks on its power grid, heating and water supply systems. Ukrainian officials have reported strikes on refineries in the Samara, Yaroslavl and Ryazan regions in the past week, although they have not specifically claimed responsibility for each one. US President Donald Trump has repeatedly asked Ukraine to halt the refinery attacks, saying they push up fuel prices; Zelenskyy has said Kyiv is ready to stop if Russian strikes on energy targets are halted.
Talks due to resume as the attacks continue
The missile barrage comes just days before US-led talks involving Ukrainian and Russian negotiators are due to resume in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, the first such meeting since February, aimed at moving toward a resolution of the more than four-and-a-half-year-old war. The timing underlines how far apart the two sides remain: even as negotiators prepare to meet, Russia is intensifying its campaign against the infrastructure Ukraine needs to survive the winter, and Ukraine is hitting back at the refineries that fund Moscow's war effort.
Ukrainian officials continued to warn residents of the potential for more strikes hours after the attack, and the full extent of the damage in Kyiv was still being assessed on Saturday morning.
Sources: Reuters, Kyiv Independent, Kyiv Post, Arab News.