Kyiv strike kills 15 as Russian missiles overwhelm Ukraine's air defences

Kyiv,UPDATED: Aug 5, 2026 12:32 IST

Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region killed 15 people and injured 42 overnight into Wednesday, Ukraine's state emergency service said. The attack was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian ballistic missile strikes that have become near-routine this summer.

Ukraine has a limited stockpile of interceptor missiles for its US-made Patriot systems, the only air defence system in its arsenal that can shoot down ballistic missiles. That has made large volleys such as Wednesday's attack difficult to stop, even as Ukraine has stepped up deep strikes on Russian oil refineries and energy infrastructure.

In the wider Kyiv region around the capital, 14 people were killed and 27 injured, with fires breaking out at several sites in Brovary, Bucha and Fastiv districts, Ukraine's emergency service said. Large warehouse fires burned in the city of Brovary and in the villages of Velyka Dymerka, Kvitneve and Peremoha. A fire involving vehicles at an enterprise in Fastiv district was put out.

In Bucha district, crews battled a warehouse fire in the village of Chaiky after extinguishing a separate blaze at a logistics facility in Sofiivska Borshchahivka. In Kyiv itself, one person was killed and 15 were injured. The Kyiv City Military Administration said emergency crews had put out all fires caused by the strikes in the Obolonskyi, Sviatoshynskyi, Holosiivskyi and Desnianskyi districts.

Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Ukraine's president on defence technology development, said the war of attrition had entered a new phase. "The enemy is attacking everything indiscriminately - retail warehouses, food storage facilities, logistics hubs, enterprises, building materials warehouses," he said on Facebook.

One of the companies hit heavily was Epicentr, one of Ukraine's largest retail and construction chains. The company said in a statement on Facebook that "in minutes, Russian missiles destroyed what the company had built over decades". One employee was killed and three others were injured. Russia struck two of the company's key logistics hubs.

A direct hit also destroyed the production floor of Epicentr's ceramic tile factory, forcing the company to stop manufacturing there and shift production abroad. Full recovery is expected to take up to two years, the company said. Epicentr also expressed support for other Ukrainian businesses damaged in the attack, saying it understood "how many years of work, effort, faith and daily responsibility stand behind every enterprise".

Ukraine has also carried out its own campaign against Russian retail logistics, striking several warehouses belonging to Wildberries, often described as Russia's answer to Amazon, as part of a broader effort to damage Moscow's economy and bring home to Russians the costs of the war. Wednesday's strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region again underlined the scale of the attacks and the pressure on Ukraine's air defence system.

With PTI Inputs

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