KYIV, UKRAINE – JULY 19: A firefighter looks at the damage from a large-scale attack overnight that left at least one person dead and thirteen injured on July 19, 2026 in Kyiv, Ukraine. Kyiv was hit with about 40 Iskander-M and hypersonic Zircon missiles. (Photo by Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)
Paula Bronstein | Getty Images News | Getty Images
Russia battered Ukraine’s capital Kyiv overnight with one of its biggest ballistic missile barrages of the war, killing at least one person and wounding 16 others, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.
A series of powerful explosions thundered across the darkened city in an attack that involved 41 missiles of various types, the air force said, ravaging buildings across several districts and sparking fires.
Residential buildings, warehouses, a supermarket and a dormitory were among the structures damaged, said Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, adding that three people were in a serious condition.
Separately on Sunday, four people were killed and 19 wounded in a strike on a postal depot outside the northeastern city of Kharkiv near the Russian border, the regional governor said.
At one location in western Kyiv, emergency workers picked through smoldering debris and doused bombed-out apartments.
A resident who identified himself as Vlad told Reuters he had been inside his apartment when a blast tore off his balcony door, which smashed him in the head.
“My grandmother lives with me, and she can’t walk. How could I run away and leave her behind?” he said.
Closer to the city center, the strikes damaged a frequently targeted metro station and destroyed a nearby underground pedestrian passage, leaving a pile of rubble.
On Sunday evening, rescuers in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia were digging for survivors after Russian bombs struck residential buildings there, authorities said, killing at least two people and wounding 14.
Critical shortage of air defenses
Russian forces have stepped up ballistic missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities in recent weeks as Ukraine struggles with a critical shortage of U.S.-designed air defenses.
Kyiv’s military said it had shot down 18 missiles in Sunday’s attack, which was aimed primarily at the Ukrainian capital. It added that 108 out of 125 drones had also been downed.
Last week, Zelenskiy said the U.S. and Ukraine have reached a political agreement on licenses to make Patriot interceptor missiles. He added that he hoped production could begin by the end of the year.
But the mounting Russian attacks in the fifth year of Moscow’s full-scale war are heaping pressure on Kyiv’s foreign partners to accelerate the supply of anti-ballistic defenses.
“Protection against ballistic missiles is our constant and top priority right now,” Zelenskiy said on X on Sunday. “Interceptors are needed every day.”
‘Kyiv will flourish’
Later on Sunday, workers cleared rubble from around the damaged Kyiv metro station and the caved-in underpass as passersby looked on, seemingly unfazed.
Fruit vendors resumed business as usual in their makeshift stalls as an excavator poured debris into a dump truck in the background.
“Kyiv will flourish,” said Iryna Lomeyko, 68, hinting at the stubborn normality of a neighborhood that has been heavily damaged by repeated Russian strikes.
“Those idiots destroy everything, but we’ll repair it and build anew,” she added. “Everything will be alright.”
