KYIV: Russian air strikes killed 17 people and injured more than 40 in Kyiv and the surrounding region on Thursday as President Volodymyr Zelensky said a failure by Ukraine’s allies to replenish its stock of air defence missiles was costing lives.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched dozens of cruise missiles, as well as ballistic and hypersonic ones, and 168 drones, in a massive overnight attack.

The air force said that nearly 90pc of the drones and most of the cruise missiles were downed. It did not specify whether any of the more deadly ballistic missiles were intercepted — having said last week that providing such information was giving Russia cause to celebrate.

Zelensky called Thursday’s strike one of the most “cynical, calculated, and large-scale” of the 4-1/2-year war. The upper floors of a nine-storey residential block were destroyed in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, where at least eight people were killed, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He declared Friday a day of mourning.

Zelensky pleads for Patriot interceptors

Outside the damaged apartment block, an elderly woman wailed as rescuers carried out the body of her grandson. She stood sobbing beside his body after he was placed on the ground, before medics came to support her.

Overall, 30 residential buildings, a school, a children’s hospital and a kindergarten were among those damaged in Kyiv and the surrounding areas, Zelensky said.

Russia’s defence ministry said that Moscow had used airstrikes and drones to hit targets in and around Kyiv, including facilities producing drone components, a military depot and a logistics hub.

As Russia has escalated its ballistic strikes in recent months, Zelensky has pleaded with allies to replenish Ukraine’s stock of Patriot interceptors — the only weapon in its arsenal capable of downing a ballistic missile.

“Each additional missile saves the lives of our people,” Zelensky said on the Telegram app, adding that replacement missiles had not been received. “Unfortunately ... the world’s response to such attacks is not always adequate.”

Peace talks

Zelensky warned that Moscow would not seriously negotiate for peace as long as Ukraine had no missile defences to defend its cities. US-mediated talks to end the war stalled earlier this year as Kyiv refused to yield to Russian demands to cede more territory. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on X, in response to Zelensky’s message, that she was working with member states and partners to provide Ukraine with anti-ballistic capabilities as “the most urgent of priorities”.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi said that some food warehouses and the facilities of the Red Cross around Kyiv were damaged in the overnight attack, which lasted nearly nine hours.

In recent weeks, fresh fruit and vegetables have occasionally disappeared from the shelves in some supermarkets in Kyiv as a result of strikes on logistics depots of food retailers.

Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2026