At least 37 people were killed near Kyiv after a Russian strike hit a warehouse in Myla and triggered a major detonation, as Ukrainian officials opened criminal proceedings over the storage of military materials near civilian homes and warned that earlier safety failures had been repeated.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
At least 37 people were killed Saturday after a Russian strike near Kyiv triggered a massive warehouse detonation and fire that spread through surrounding residential areas, making the attack one of the deadliest to hit Ukraine this year.
The strike occurred in the Bucha district west of the Ukrainian capital, where flames swept through homes and damaged at least 50 residential buildings, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the strike hit a warehouse in the village of Myla, “followed by a detonation.”
While Zelenskyy did not disclose exactly what had been stored at the site, he noted that Ukrainian law prohibits ammunition from being stored close to civilian homes and said authorities had opened criminal proceedings over the circumstances surrounding the disaster.
“Those who allowed this to happen must be held accountable for their decisions,” Zelenskyy said.
The explosion also damaged a care home serving elderly people and people with disabilities, according to Zelenskyy, who said evacuations from the surrounding area were continuing.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi drew a direct comparison to another deadly explosion in the Kyiv suburb of Vyshneve in early July, when an ammunition depot was struck, killing 22 people and setting off large secondary explosions and fires that tore through nearby homes.
“Unfortunately, we can already see that the terrible tragedy in Vyshneve did not become a lesson,” Koretskyi said. “In the fifth year of a full-scale invasion, making the same mistakes is criminal negligence. And all those guilty, without exception, must be severely punished so that such situations do not happen again.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its forces had targeted a warehouse in Myla containing components and launch boosters for Ukrainian long-range drones.
Moscow also said it struck the ports of Mykolaiv and Izmail, along with a logistics center and warehouse facilities in the Kyiv region that it said contained components for Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missiles.
The latest disaster has renewed scrutiny inside Ukraine over the placement of military supplies near civilian areas.
Zelenskyy later said two officials from state-owned companies, including Ukraine’s largest arms producer, Ukroboronprom, had illegally authorized weapons storage at the Vyshneve site involved in the July explosion and would be held accountable.
The attack near Kyiv came amid three days of nearly continuous Russian air raids against the capital, severely disrupting civilian life and economic activity more than 4½ years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian strikes on the southern Kherson region killed two people and wounded 27 others Saturday, according to regional administration chief Oleksandr Prokudin.
Prokudin said houses and apartment buildings were damaged and that one child was among the wounded.
Earlier in the week, he warned that Russia had intensified attacks on critical infrastructure across Kherson, roughly 70% of which is under Russian control.
He urged tens of thousands of residents to relocate to safer regions because of the risk that prolonged electricity and heating outages could develop during the coming winter.
The renewed attacks are also highlighting changes in Russia’s drone campaign.
Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said Friday in comments embargoed until Saturday that Moscow has significantly expanded its use of jet-powered drones and is likely to deploy even more as Russian forces see their effectiveness.
“Means of attack always outpace means of defense. We will certainly need to adapt. It will take time,” Palisa said.
Ukraine possesses interceptor drones that theoretically could counter the faster jet-powered weapons, but Palisa said the systems have not yet demonstrated the effectiveness Kyiv expected. Ukrainian officials are continuing to work on additional solutions.
At the same time, Ukraine has been expanding its own long-range campaign against targets inside Russia.
Kyiv has increasingly used domestically produced drones to strike Russian military-industrial and energy facilities, seeking both to reduce Moscow’s revenue for the war and to bring the effects of the conflict deeper into Russian territory.
Zelenskyy said Friday evening that Ukraine wants to dramatically increase the pace of those operations, eventually reaching 1,000 long-range drone launches per day.
“Right now, we average over 300 of our long-range sanctions,” Zelenskyy said, using his preferred description for Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. “There must be more. We have a very specific goal, and we will achieve it.”
Recent Ukrainian targets have also included large Russian online retailers.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Saturday that its forces destroyed 313 Ukrainian drones overnight.
In Russia’s Rostov region, Gov. Yuri Slyusar said Ukrainian drone attacks wounded 11 people.
Nine of those injured were hospitalized, including four children, according to Slyusar.
The escalating exchanges underscore the increasing role of long-range drones and missile attacks on both sides of the conflict, with military infrastructure increasingly targeted near or within heavily populated areas.
Saturday’s deaths near Kyiv have also exposed a separate issue for Ukrainian authorities: whether military materials are being stored too close to civilians despite the known danger of secondary explosions.
With at least 37 people dead and widespread residential damage following the Myla warehouse detonation, Ukrainian leaders are now pursuing both the Russian strike itself and possible domestic responsibility for decisions that may have magnified its consequences.
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