The death toll from a Russian strike on a warehouse west of Kyiv, the war’s deadliest attack this year, rose to 38 with four people still missing, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday.
The attack came as Russia has sharply intensified its air campaign recently in the 4 1/2-year-old war, with air raid sirens wailing repeatedly and explosions and the rumble of air defenses resounding across Kyiv throughout the day. He said 20 people were injured, including two children.
The Friday night strike on the warehouse, which Ukrainian officials said was storing ammunition, sparked massive explosions and fires that swept through dozens of nearby homes and buildings in the village of Myla. Emergency workers continued to extinguish fires and identify and neutralize explosives at the site, Zelenskyy said on social media. A Ukrainian strike Sunday on a mine in Luhansk in Russian-held eastern Ukraine killed an employee, a Kremlin-installed local official said. Five others were injured across the province, according to regional head Leonid Pasechnik. In Russia, Ukrainian drone strikes injured at least four people in the border regions of Kursk and Belgorod, local authorities said.
Khmara, a former special forces officer, takes over as Kyiv’s war effort faces mounting financial pressures. Local Gov. The ministry is considering bringing forward part of a 90 billion euro ($104 billion) European loan planned for next year, and has identified partners for separate talks on financing specific defense needs, he said. Kyiv sends hundreds of drones into Russia Also on Sunday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces downed or neutralized almost 500 Ukrainian drones launched overnight. He said a total of 62 drones had been shot down over the surrounding region.
He said a priority will be avoiding battlefield shortages while ensuring soldiers are paid and other essential needs are met. “Ukraine will show its partners a clear vision and a clear plan,” he vowed, adding he planned to preserve much of the existing ministry team. Alexander Drozdenko reported only that a fire broke out “in Kirishi’s industrial zone” following the drone strikes.
Ukrainian drones also have struck oil refineries and other energy infrastructure, prompting an unprecedented fuel crisis in one of the world’s biggest energy producers. During the war’s previous winters, Russia systematically battered Ukraine’s power grid, depriving thousands of heat and light. Khmara made the remarks at his first briefing with reporters since taking the post Saturday. His appointment followed weeks of protests after Mykhailo Fedorov’s dismissal that sparked a military reset in Kyiv and culminated in a video in which Fedorov called for a new presidential election.
Ukrainian officials have repeatedly warned that the coming winter may prove to be the most challenging since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. New defense chief seeks to close $27 billion funding gap Ukraine’s new Defense Minister Yevhen Khmara said the ministry has options for closing the $27 billion funding gap he inherited from his predecessor, including seeking more contributions from allies. Because it sells dual-use goods that have aided the military, although the company denies that, ukraine said it was attacking Wildberries — the country’s largest online retailer, similar to Amazon —.
Khmara’s comments were released for publication on Sunday.
The escalation was a notable shift in tactics, putting more pressure on Ukraine’s already strained air defenses while keeping civilians on alert for hours. It described the planned strikes as retaliation for Kyiv’s drone campaign against Russian online retailers Wildberries and Ozon, as well as the country’s oil and gas sector.
On Saturday, Zelenskyy called the Myla attack “a terrible situation” and a consequence of “terrible negligence on the part of those who stored explosives right next to people. He said an investigation was underway into why the ammunition came to be kept there. Russia vows ‘massive strikes’ against Ukraine’s energy sector The Defense Ministry in Moscow said Sunday it is preparing “massive strikes” on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it would be “an appropriate response” to what he called Ukraine’s “path of escalation” and targeting of Russia’s civilian economy. Peskov told Russian state media that Moscow has been launching “fairly systematic” strikes on what he called Kyiv’s military and war-related infrastructure.
Previously, daytime attacks on the capital had been relatively rare.
