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Russian forces launched a fresh wave of attacks on Ukraine's capital in the early hours of Tuesday, striking Kyiv just hours after a drone slammed into the historic National Academy of Sciences building in the city centre, killing at least two people. Explosions reverberated across the capital overnight, with Mayor Vitali Klitschko reporting that missile debris had crashed into the courtyard of one building while a separate structure caught fire elsewhere in the city.
The assault on the academy, which occurred on Monday, marked one of the most symbolically significant strikes on Kyiv in recent weeks. Emergency crews recovered one victim's body from the rubble later in the evening, confirming the second fatality. Video footage circulated online appeared to capture a fast-moving drone diving into the building at a steep angle before detonating, sending plumes of smoke into an otherwise clear sky. Onlookers were seen leaning out of windows as bright orange flames consumed part of the historic structure.
Volodymyr Horbulin, a former secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, told public broadcaster Suspilne that he was inside the academy when the attack unfolded. He confirmed that his assistant, who had been near the building at the time, was killed, and that he himself sustained minor injuries. The academy occupies a sensitive location in central Kyiv, situated close to the German Embassy, a cathedral, the national opera, and several government buildings, underscoring the high-profile nature of the target.
In an official statement, the academy condemned the strike as "Russian terror" and "barbarity" directed at "peaceful people who were simply at their workplaces." The institution's leadership expressed outrage that a scientific centre dedicated to research and scholarship had been transformed into a scene of bloodshed and destruction during an ordinary working day.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha sharply criticised Moscow for what he described as cynicism in targeting a scientific institution while employees were present. "Russia is deliberately expanding the boundaries of what it believes the world will tolerate," Sybiha said in a statement, calling on Ukraine's international partners to accelerate deliveries of air defence systems to protect Ukrainian cities from continued bombardment.
The attack formed part of a broader escalation that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said had claimed at least nine lives across the country on Monday, with more than 80 people wounded. Zelenskyy also reported that Russian forces struck a medical facility in Kyiv during the same period, adding to the toll of civilian infrastructure damaged or destroyed.
In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy acknowledged that Ukraine continues to struggle against Russia's newer generation of jet-powered drones, which fly faster and at higher altitudes than the propeller-driven models that dominated earlier phases of the war. He noted that new interceptors are being actively tested and that some combat units have begun deploying them, though he conceded that further refinement is needed to achieve sufficient effectiveness and scale. "We are speeding up the developers," he said, signalling a push to close the capability gap.
According to Zelenskyy, 90 of the 120 drones launched against Ukraine on Monday were jet-propelled rather than propeller-driven, and the interception rate for this category of weapon currently stands at just 57 percent. The figure highlights a persistent vulnerability in Ukraine's air defence architecture as Russia adapts its tactics and technology to overwhelm existing countermeasures.
Officials reported that Monday's strikes on Kyiv also targeted a pharmaceutical company and petrol stations, while civilian facilities, businesses, and communications infrastructure were hit in other cities and regions across the country. In the southeastern city of Dnipro, a Russian drone attack on a business centre killed three people and wounded 19 others, according to local authorities. Regional officials said another person was killed in a logistics office in Synelnykove, southeast of Dnipro. In Zaporizhzhia, also in the southeast, an attack on infrastructure wounded 32 people, emergency services confirmed.
Al Jazeera's Jonah Hull, reporting from Kyiv, described a sustained Russian campaign against economic targets across Ukraine that has now continued for six consecutive days, with strikes occurring around the clock. He noted that data centres are increasingly being hit, alongside digital and communications infrastructure. Kyiv Star, Ukraine's largest mobile operator, was struck on Sunday, as was the country's second-largest provider, Vodafone Ukraine. Hull added that the government is preparing for the worst-case scenario: a total blackout of communications should the attacks persist.
The sustained bombardment has brought Kyiv "firmly into the eye of this war," Hull observed, a notable shift for a capital that had experienced periods of relative calm earlier in the conflict despite repeated strikes. Meanwhile, Ukraine has intensified its own long-range attacks on Russian territory, targeting oil refineries and online retail operations in an effort to erode revenues that fund Moscow's war machine. Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukrainian forces had struck oil facilities in Russia's Krasnodar region as well as two defence plants. Both sides have consistently denied deliberately targeting civilians, even as casualty figures among non-combatants continue to mount.
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