9 killed, 27 injured in Kyiv as Russia launches 2nd major attack in 48 hours

Editor’s Note: This is a developing story and is being updated.

Smoke filled the sky over Kyiv as multiple explosions rocked the city overnight on Aug. 1, damaging residential buildings after Russia launched a fatal ballistic missile attack.

At least nine people have been killed and 27 others injured in the attack, including four children, authorities reported.

First responders have rescued a total of 105 people, the State Emergency Service wrote.

Fires and damage to residential buildings and industrial targets have been reported in at least five districts of the city.

In the Darnytskyi district alone, seven people were killed and another 14 were injured, including two children, the State Emergency Service reported.

The bombardment marks Russia’s second large-scale attack against Ukraine in 48 hours.

The latest assault kicked off at approximately 1:33 a.m. local time, when a rapid succession of “very loud” explosions rattled the capital, according to Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground. As blasts shook the city, Ukraine’s Air Force warned that multiple ballistic missiles were heading toward Kyiv.

Less than a half hour later, Kyiv Independent journalists reported another round of explosions. More blasts followed at around 2:16 a.m. and 3:20 a.m.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko urged residents to take shelter, saying that Russian ballistic missiles were attacking the city.

‘People are trapped’

Russia’s attack struck residential and non-residential buildings, including apartments, warehouses, a car wash, and a parking lot, local authorities said.

In some apartment buildings, residents were trapped when their homes came under Russian missile fire.

Klitschko reported that missile debris struck a five-story building in the Solomianskyi district, causing a fire in the courtyard and making it difficult for residents to evacuate. “People are trapped,” he wrote on Telegram.

The State Emergency Service later reported that the damaged building partially collapsed and caught fire.

A similar situation was reported at an attack site in the Shevchenkivskyi district, where the mayor said people were trapped after the building partially collapsed. Emergency services are heading to the scene of the attacks, Klitschko said.

A commercial building and several ambulances were set ablaze in the district, and the fire has now been extinguished, the State Emergency Service wrote, adding that one person was injured in the district and another fire broke out “on the grounds of a film studio and was brought under control.”

Klitschko reported fires in Kyiv’s Holosiivskyi, Darnytskyi, Shevchenkivskyi, and Solomianskyi districts. Multiple residential buildings in the capital have been hit, Klitschko said.

The Darnytskyi district suffered the highest human cost in the overnight Russian attack on Ukraine’s capital.

“Fires and structural damage were reported at an administrative building and a commercial building. At another location, vehicles caught fire and residential buildings were damaged. Seven people were killed, and 14 others were injured, including two children. Firefighters extinguished the blazes,” the State Emergency Service reported.

Russia’s relentless missile terror

Just outside of Ukraine’s capital, another two people were injured in Kyiv Oblast, the State Emergency Service reported.

Overnight on July 30, Russia hit multiple cities in the country, including far-western Lviv, with drones and missiles, killing at least eight people and injuring over 50 others.

The mass attack even triggered air raid alerts in eastern Poland after a Russian missile fell into a field in the Lublin region.

Within two days, swarms of missiles were again flying towards Kyiv.

Russia has targeted Ukraine’s capital with ballistic missile barrages throughout spring and summer 2026. Moscow’s new tactic in its full-scale war entails overwhelming the country’s strained air defenses, inflicting maximum damage on residential neighborhoods and cultural sites.

Attacks with ballistic missiles are more devastating and more deadly, since few weapons can shoot down Russia’s high-speed Zircons and Iskanders. Patriot interceptor missiles remain the only effective defense — and Ukraine’s supply has run dry.

U.S. President Donald Trump said he would grant Ukraine a license to produce its own Patriot missiles, but he walked the offer back during a Cabinet meeting hours before Russia’s latest ballistic missile strike hit Kyiv.

“We have not agreed to that,” he said. “We’re talking about it, but it’s a hard thing to give away that kind of technology.”