Russian drones batter Kyiv for fifth consecutive day

Russian drone attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding region have now continued for a fifth consecutive day, forcing millions of residents to endure almost uninterrupted air raid alerts.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that in just four days, Russia launched nearly 1,500 drones at Ukraine, more than half of them equipped with jet engines. He believes the relentless strikes are a deliberate strategy to wear down both the civilian population and the country's air defense systems. Russia has also increasingly begun using drone waves during daytime hours rather than only at night.

Damage and casualties

On Monday morning, strikes in the Kyiv region injured four people and damaged warehouses, an apartment building and a shop. The most severe consequences came on Friday, when a strike on an ammunition depot near Kyiv triggered a series of explosions that killed several dozen people.

Even Kyiv residents whose homes were untouched are feeling the impact, as air raid alerts repeatedly halt metro service across the Dnipro River, leading to long waits at crowded stations and making daily commutes to work or school unpredictable.

Other regions hit as well

Strikes have also hit other parts of Ukraine — in the Odesa region, a terminal belonging to the logistics company Nova Poshta caught fire, while in Kryvyi Rih a strike on an industrial facility injured two people. Russia has increasingly targeted warehouses and logistics hubs important to Ukraine's economy in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Ukraine continues to strike targets inside Russian territory — on Monday, a drone strike was reported against a logistics center in Yekaterinburg. The five-day drone campaign against Kyiv highlights a new challenge for Ukraine's air defense: not only shooting down growing numbers of aircraft, but withstanding almost continuous waves of attacks.