A Russian drone strike late on Friday hit a munitions storage site near homes on the outskirts of Kyiv, killing 37 people and forcing nearly 400 residents to evacuate, Ukrainian officials said. Secondary detonations of shells, mines and drones caused a large blast that damaged houses and nearby institutions, including a care home for elderly and disabled people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The blast occurred in Myla village in the Bucha district, where rescue teams continued operations on Saturday. Regional authorities reported 42 people injured, including four children. Local residents described widespread destruction: about 130 homes were damaged and many buildings showed structural cracks after the explosion. One resident said her house, roughly 200 metres from the depot, had perimeter and window cracks and that she felt numb and overwhelmed by the damage.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces had struck “an ammunition depot” in Myla holding components and launch boosters for FP-1/FP-2 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles. Ukrainian officials said the site had been operated by the armed forces.
Zelensky and other senior Ukrainian officials reacted with anger at the proximity of explosive stores to residential areas. The president said the facility “definitely shouldn’t have been there” and ordered an investigation into what he described as “terrible negligence” by those who chose the site. The prosecutor general’s office said it was reviewing the legality of storing explosives near homes and would probe the decisions of officials who approved the placement. Criminal proceedings have been opened on charges of official negligence, the authorities added.
The strike revived comparisons to a July blast in Vyshneve, when a munitions explosion killed nine people, injured dozens and damaged more than 280 homes. Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said repeating such mistakes in the fifth year of a full-scale invasion amounts to criminal negligence and called for those responsible to be held to account.
The attack came amid a period of intensified aerial strikes by both sides. Kyiv reported further overnight attacks in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia, and said its air defences had shot down 233 Russian drones. Local officials also reported other deadly incidents: a 14-year-old was killed in an attack in Boryspil district, and Kyiv’s mayor said a two-year-old died after a Russian drone crashed in Obolonskyi. Authorities said five people were killed nationwide in the past day.
The Russian strikes have coincided with Ukrainian raids on targets inside Russia, including facilities Kyiv says supplied military components. Moscow denies some of those claims.
With emergency teams continuing search and recovery work and investigations under way, Ukrainian leaders have pledged to draw conclusions and pursue accountability for the placement and management of explosive stores near civilian areas.