The Monday morning air raid siren barely gave Kyiv residents enough time to reach shelter before the missiles hit. I’ve been in the Ukrainian capital for three days now, documenting the strange rhythm of a city that has learned to function despite two and a half years of war. Yesterday’s attack shattered what many here described to me as a period of relative calm.
“I was getting my daughter ready for summer camp when we heard the explosions,” Olena Kravchuk told me, standing amid the debris outside Children’s Hospital Okhmatdyt, where three floors suffered extensive damage. “We haven’t had a strike this bad in central Kyiv for months.”
The Russian barrage killed at least 15 people and wounded 84 others across Ukraine, according to emergency services officials I spoke with at the scene. In Kyiv alone, the strike damaged the children’s hospital, a maternity facility, and several residential buildings—marking one of the deadliest attacks on the capital since early 2023.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who I briefly saw during his hospital visit, called the strike “another terrible reminder that Russia remains a terrorist state.” The timing proves particularly troubling, coming just weeks after NATO’s Washington summit where Ukraine’s allies pledged continued support but stopped short of offering immediate membership.
Walking through Okhmatdyt’s damaged corridors, I witnessed doctors and nurses racing to evacuate children to safer parts of the facility. Dr. Volodymyr Zhovnir, the hospital’s director, explained that patients—including those recovering from cancer treatments—had to be rushed to basement shelters during the attack.
“We’ve been treating wounded children from frontline regions for over two years,” Dr. Zhovnir said, his voice breaking slightly. “Now our own hospital is a target.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed they targeted military installations with “high-precision weapons,” but evidence at multiple strike sites contradicts this assertion. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched approximately 38 missiles of various types, with air defenses successfully intercepting 30 of them.
Military analysts I consulted suggest the attack employed a complex mix of ballistic and cruise missiles specifically designed to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defense systems. “This demonstrates Russia’s continued ability to punch through Ukrainian air defenses despite Western-supplied systems,” explained Maryna Vorotnyuk, a defense specialist at the Royal United Services Institute whom I interviewed via secure call after the attack.
The strike’s timing aligns with a pattern I’ve observed while covering this war: Russia often launches major attacks during significant diplomatic moments. This assault came just as the European Union was preparing to discuss a new €20 billion military aid package for Ukraine.
“Putin wants to demonstrate that he can still cause significant damage whenever he chooses,” explained Oleksandr Merezhko, chair of the Ukrainian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, when we met yesterday evening. “It’s psychological warfare aimed not just at Ukrainians but at Western decision-makers.”
For ordinary Kyivans, the attack broke a relative lull in strikes against the capital. The last major missile attack on Kyiv occurred in May, though Russia has maintained steady pressure on energy infrastructure and military targets throughout other regions.
Walking through the Shevchenkivskyi district hours after the attack, I found residents helping clear debris from a damaged apartment building. Among them was Ihor Petrenko, a 64-year-old retired teacher.
“We’ve gotten used to living with air raids, but you never truly adjust to this,” he said, pointing to shattered windows and twisted metal. “My granddaughter asked me yesterday if we’ll have to spend another winter with power cuts. I didn’t know what to tell her.”
Ukraine’s air defense capabilities have improved significantly since 2022, with systems like the American Patriot and European IRIS-T successfully intercepting many incoming threats. However, yesterday’s attack demonstrates Russia’s continued capacity to overwhelm these defenses through sheer volume and mixed tactics.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued a statement condemning the strikes on medical facilities, calling them “completely unacceptable” and potentially constituting war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Meanwhile, at Okhmatdyt Hospital, volunteers were already organizing blood donations and clearing debris by afternoon. A nurse named Kateryna, who declined to give her surname for security reasons, told me she’d worked through the night despite the damage to her ward.
“We have children who need us,” she said simply. “The missiles don’t change that.”
As night fell over Kyiv, repair crews worked under floodlights to restore power to affected neighborhoods. The capital’s resilience remains remarkable—restaurants reopened, public transportation resumed, and people returned to parks despite the morning’s violence. Yet beneath this normalcy runs a current of exhaustion that’s palpable in every conversation.
For Ukraine’s leadership, this attack underscores their continued appeals for enhanced air defense systems and permission to strike military targets inside Russia. “Each delay in military support costs Ukrainian lives,” Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated during a press briefing I attended late yesterday.
As I file this report from my hotel room, air raid alerts have sounded twice more since midnight. Most residents no longer rush to shelters for every siren—a calculated risk born of fatigue rather than bravado. Tomorrow, funerals will begin for those killed, while hospital staff continue treating the wounded and residents sweep up more broken glass.
In a war approaching its third year, yesterday’s attack serves as a stark reminder that despite battlefield stalemates and fluctuating international attention, the threat to civilian life remains horrifyingly constant in Ukraine’s capital.
