KYIV, Ukraine — Russian ballistic missiles struck districts across Kyiv late on Monday, killing one person and injuring 10 in the third ballistic attack on the Ukrainian capital in two weeks, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The first explosions were heard at about 9:40 p.m., shortly after Ukraine’s Air Force warned that ballistic missiles were incoming, and rescue operations were still under way hours later.
The heaviest damage was reported in the Desnyanskyi district on the city’s east bank. Near the Lisova metro station, a strike damaged the station and a tram and set a car ablaze. Another impact tore through the grounds of the State Trade and Economics University, hitting the area around a student dormitory and the nearby Kyoto Park, and residential buildings were struck elsewhere in the district. A school building in Desnyanskyi was also damaged.
In the Dniprovskyi district, blast waves damaged two medical facilities, shattering windows across the buildings, including in an intensive care unit, officials said.
Klitschko put the preliminary toll at one person killed and 10 injured, with nine of the wounded taken to hospital and three in serious condition. Most of those hurt were university students, he said. A paramedic and a medical technician were among the injured, and an ambulance crew came under fire while responding, leaving an ambulance damaged. The State Emergency Service said a body was recovered near a heavily damaged apartment building, while Klitschko said the person killed had been near a supermarket. Officials stressed that the toll was preliminary and could change as rescuers worked through the debris.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy used the attack to renew his public complaint about the pace of Western air-defense deliveries. He said Ukraine had waited nearly a month for U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to sign off on Patriot and NASAMS interceptor missiles — a claim about his own government’s dealings with Washington that Zark News has not independently verified, presented here as the president’s political argument that Kyiv’s defenses are being kept short of interceptors.
Russia issued no statement specific to Monday’s strike. Moscow’s standing position, as reported by Reuters, is that its forces do not target civilians.
Monday’s barrage extends a two-week pattern of ballistic attacks on the capital. A strike on Oct. 13-14 killed five people and injured 25, and another on Oct. 22 killed at least one person and injured 24, according to Ukrainian officials. Kyiv has faced repeated missile and drone attacks since Russia’s full-scale invasion, but ballistic missiles are among the hardest for air defenses to stop because of their speed, which is why the recent concentration of such strikes has alarmed city officials.
Much about Monday’s attack remains unconfirmed. Ukrainian officials described the weapons only as ballistic missiles and did not specify a type. Early reports of power cuts on the east bank of the Dnipro River had not been confirmed as a major strike on energy infrastructure, and it was not yet clear whether all of the injured facilities were hit directly or damaged by blast waves and falling debris. Casualty figures from the mayor’s office and the emergency service were still being reconciled overnight.
Sources: Office of the Mayor of Kyiv, Office of the President of Ukraine, State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Reuters, The Kyiv Independent — Oct. 26, 2026
