Russian forces unleashed one of the heaviest bombardments of Kyiv in weeks on Monday, firing more than 120 drones — most of them faster, jet-powered variants — alongside missiles in a daylong assault that set fire to the historic headquarters of Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences and struck targets in at least five regions. Early Tuesday, air-raid sirens sounded again as Kyiv's mayor and Ukraine's air force warned of a fresh wave of ballistic missiles fired from Russia's Kursk region, extending the barrage into a second day.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the nationwide assault killed at least nine people and wounded more than 80, with the toll expected to rise as rescue crews worked through the rubble of struck buildings. Kyiv officials reported a woman killed when a drone slammed into the Academy of Sciences' presidium building on Volodymyrska Street; regional officials said several more were killed when an office building was hit in Dnipro, and dozens were wounded in Kharkiv, where a nine-story apartment block took a direct hit.
A Landmark Institution Set Ablaze
Video circulating Monday showed a fast-moving, jet-powered drone slamming into the Academy of Sciences building at a steep angle before exploding, sending smoke over central Kyiv and trapping office workers inside as flames spread through the century-old structure, founded in 1918. In a statement, the academy's leadership called the strike "Russian terror" and "barbarity" directed at "peaceful people," and Al Jazeera reported that the building's historic reading rooms and archives sustained heavy damage.
Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the daylight strike on a scientific institution reflected an escalating disregard for civilian life, and pressed allies to speed deliveries of air-defense systems.
Russia is deliberately expanding the boundaries of what it believes the world will tolerate.
Andrii Sybiha, Ukrainian Foreign Minister
Ukraine's air force said roughly 90 of the drones launched Monday were the newer, high-speed jet-powered type Russia has increasingly deployed in recent weeks, which fly faster and higher than earlier models and are harder for existing air defenses to intercept. Ukraine's Air Force said defenses brought down the large majority of the overall drone barrage, but interception rates against the jet variants lagged well behind those for older, slower drones. Zelensky acknowledged the growing challenge and said Ukraine is testing new interceptor systems built to counter the faster threat.
Beyond the capital, strikes also hit a medical facility and a pharmaceutical company in Kyiv, two data centers, and infrastructure belonging to mobile carriers Kyivstar and Vodafone Ukraine — part of what Ukrainian officials describe as a deliberate campaign to degrade the country's economy and communications heading into winter. A distribution hub in Odesa and cargo vessels in the Black Sea were also targeted, officials said.
Ground Fighting Persists as Diplomacy Stalls
The air assault came as fighting continued along the eastern front. Ukraine's Third Army Corps said it had recaptured roughly 68 square miles of territory in the Donetsk region since launching a counteroffensive it calls Operation Vivaldi, while Russia's defense ministry claimed its forces had seized the villages of Novovodiane in Donetsk and Ulanove in the northern Sumy region.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov defended the intensified strikes, telling reporters Ukraine "will have to pay a price for the actions that have taken place in recent months" — an apparent reference to recent Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil refineries and defense plants, CBS News reported. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov separately accused European governments of working to derail peace negotiations, a claim Kyiv and its Western backers reject.
The exchange underscores how far apart Moscow and Kyiv remain more than four and a half years into the war, despite periodic rounds of diplomacy, including United Nations-linked efforts that have yielded little tangible movement toward a ceasefire. Ukrainian officials have appealed to Western allies for additional air-defense systems capable of countering the jet-powered drones, warning that without them, civilian, scientific and economic sites will remain exposed to Russia's expanding arsenal. Kyiv's city administration said cleanup and structural assessments at the Academy of Sciences building would begin this week, even as residents braced for the possibility of further strikes.
