Russia launched a large scale missile assault on Kyiv and the surrounding region on Wednesday, killing at least 17 people and leveling warehouses belonging to major retail chains, according to Ukrainian officials, as Kyiv’s dwindling stock of air defence interceptors leaves the capital increasingly exposed. Explosions tore through the region overnight, lighting up the sky above the Ukrainian capital, which has faced missile attacks roughly every three to four days in recent weeks as Moscow has ramped up its aerial campaign. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Telegram that ballistic missile interceptors could have prevented the deaths recorded on Wednesday, calling on Ukraine’s international partners to replenish the country’s interceptor stocks. He said shipments of air defence missiles have arrived at only a third of the pace seen in 2025. Ukraine’s air force said its defences shot down close to 90 percent of the 115 drones Russia launched but failed to stop any of the 24 ballistic missiles or four Zircon cruise missiles fired during the same assault. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces struck seven logistics centres in Kyiv and the wider region, claiming the sites were used to store or move dual use goods and drone components. Ukraine has struggled for months with a shortage of interceptor missiles for its US supplied Patriot systems, currently the only weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles traveling at many times the speed of sound. Since the outbreak of the Iran war in February, Patriot interceptors originally intended for Ukraine have instead gone to the US military and its Gulf allies. Russia has used the opening to intensify ballistic strikes on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities even as its ground advances have slowed markedly this year. Officials said the attack injured more than 40 people in addition to those killed. At a commuter rail station in the Kyiv suburb of Brovary, rescue workers found seven bodies scattered across the platform, with an eighth victim discovered nearby in nearby bushes. Volodymyr Bigun, head of the local administration in Brovary, said residents had missed their last train home when the strike hit, and confirmed eight deaths in the district so far. He said five logistics warehouses sustained damage there, including one belonging to food retailer Fozzy, and accused Russian forces of continuing to target civilian infrastructure. Both Russia and Ukraine have consistently denied targeting civilians throughout the war, which began with Russia’s full scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine has continued striking back at Russian territory as part of its own campaign, hitting a logistics hub belonging to Russian online retailer Wildberries in the Tula region overnight, adding to more than a dozen similar facilities Kyiv has damaged in recent operations. Epicentr, Ukraine’s largest home improvement retail chain, said two major logistics facilities and a manufacturing plant were destroyed within minutes during Wednesday’s strikes, and that it was still working to determine the full extent of the damage. The company described the attack as a deliberate effort to undermine Ukrainian manufacturing, logistics, employment and the broader capacity to recover from the war. Food retailer Silpo said on social media that at least six of its employees died in the strikes and that two of its distribution centres caught fire. Iryna Chechotkina, co founder of the online retailer Rozetka, said she watched overnight as three ballistic missiles destroyed years of work, describing the experience as devastating while stressing that her company remains operational. Ukraine’s economy has shown considerable resilience over more than four years of war, sustained in part by billions of dollars in financial support from Western governments, but business losses have mounted this year as strikes on commercial infrastructure have grown more frequent. The Kyiv regional military administration said Wednesday’s attack damaged 13 warehouses, a manufacturing facility, four private homes and dozens of vehicles. Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi, who took office last month following a government reshuffle, said officials would hold an emergency meeting with business leaders to determine how to keep logistics and trade operations running smoothly. Kyiv has renewed its request for additional PAC-3 interceptors, the newest generation of Patriot missile. Separately, the United States is continuing talks that would allow Ukraine to manufacture Patriot missiles domestically, according to four people familiar with the discussions, even after President Donald Trump expressed skepticism about such an arrangement.
