Zelenskyy says a warehouse was struck outside Kyiv, ‘followed by a detonation’, triggering a major fire and explosions.
At least 27 people have been killed after an overnight Russian attack on a warehouse in the Bucha district, outside the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, officials said.
“Unfortunately, as things stand, 27 people are known to have died. And this figure may not be final,” Kyiv regional governor Tymur Tkachenko said on Saturday. Among the dead was Taras Didych, mayor of the village of Dmytrivska, Tkachenko said.
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A Russian drone struck a warehouse near Kyiv’s western suburbs storing munitions, sparking huge explosions, authorities said on Saturday.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of the local regional military administration, said that at least 50 residential buildings had been damaged in the attack, which caused a large-scale fire that spread to homes and a restaurant.
The warehouse appeared to have been storing “explosive objects”, according to Ukrainian prosecutors, who said they are opening an investigation into criminal negligence. The prosecutor’s office specified that its investigation would focus on “the legality of the storage of explosive objects and materials on the enterprise’s grounds”, as well as whether the company responsible, which was not named, had the “necessary permits and approvals”.
In a statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that a warehouse had been struck in the village of Myla “followed by a detonation”. He did not give details about the site, but confirmed that criminal proceedings would follow. “There are regulations in place – ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas,” Zelenskyy said.
Both Russia and Ukraine have intensified long-range strikes on each other in recent months, sparking fires and causing civilian casualties to soar.
Writing on the Telegram messaging app, Kyiv’s regional governor said that 42 people were injured and that more than 380 others were being evacuated from the strike area in the Bucha district.
Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi expressed regret that a “lesson” had not been learned after a previous deadly attack in July in Vyshneve, near Kyiv, on a munitions depot. That investigation revealed serious failings on the part of a state-owned company, which did not comply with standards to store ammunition well away from residential buildings.
“In the fifth year of the full-scale invasion, making the same mistakes over and over is criminal negligence,” Koretskyi said on Telegram. “Everyone responsible, without exception, must face severe punishment so that such situations never happen again.”
Russia launched at least two missiles and 267 drones at Ukraine between late Friday and early Saturday, according to the Ukrainian Air Force.
In addition to the warehouse strike, Russian attacks early on Saturday killed one person in the southern Odesa region and a 14-year-old girl in the Kyiv suburb of Boryspil, regional officials said.
In Russia, at least three people were killed and nine wounded in a Ukrainian drone attack in the Belgorod region, local authorities said on Telegram. Three of the injured are in serious condition, authorities added.
Another person was killed and three others were injured in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russian-annexed Sevastopol, on the Crimean Peninsula, Mikhail Razvozhayev, the city’s Russian-appointed governor, said on Telegram.
Russia and Ukraine have for several months been intensifying their long-range strikes, increasingly targeting civilian infrastructure such as logistics warehouses and oil and port facilities, with these attacks causing a growing number of civilian casualties.
