Russian Missiles Kill at Least 13 in Kyiv as Air Defenses Falter

Russia pummeled Kyiv with missiles overnight, killing at least 13 people and wounding about 40 others, Ukrainian officials said on Thursday. The barrage was the latest deadly ***ault on the capital as Moscow exploits Ukraine’s depleted air defenses.

Explosions erupted across Kyiv shortly before midnight as a first salvo of ballistic missiles rained down. Their thunder reverberated all the way underground to a subway station where some of the city’s three million residents had taken shelter, pitching tents and laying sleeping mats on the granite platform.

Within minutes, Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv’s mayor, wrote on social media that buildings in several districts had been damaged and that emergency crews were rushing to the scene. “More missiles are still heading toward the capital,” he said.

In a statement on social media, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine described the ***ault as “a m***ive attack” that Russia “had been preparing for a long time, combining different types of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, aiming to cause as much damage as possible to civilian infrastructure.”

Ukrainian officials said the attack had struck food warehouses and Red Cross facilities, though they did not specify the extent of the damage. A children’s hospital, a school and residential buildings were also damaged, the officials added. Ukraine’s emergency service released pictures that it said were from the aftermath of the attack showing gutted buildings with blown out windows.

In his statement on Thursday, Mr. Zelensky again sounded the alarm about Ukraine’s weakened air defenses. He urged allies to provide more military ***istance, especially U.S.-made Patriot interceptors, which remain the country’s most reliable defense against ballistic missiles.

The strain on air defenses has become such that the Ukrainian Air Force announced last week that it would stop disclosing the numbers of ballistic missiles fired by Russia and shot down in each attack, saying that poor interception rates were generating negative headlines that risked scaring people.

In July, before the air force ceased publishing those statistics, Ukraine intercepted less than a third of the ballistic missiles launched that month, according to a New York Times blockysis of official figures.

Civilian deaths have risen in Ukraine as air defenses have faltered. Nearly 1,400 civilians were killed in the first six months of this year, a 37 percent increase from the same period in 2025 and a 114 percent increase compared with the year before, according to the United Nations.

Russia’s evolving air ***ault tactics also point to the weaknesses in Ukraine’s air defenses. For much of the war, Moscow began attacks with waves of long-range drones that were relatively easy to shoot down. The aim was to overwhelm and stretch defenses before firing salvos of more destructive missiles.

Now, the Russian military often skips that opening barrage of drones, an apparent sign of confidence that air defenses can barely stop its missiles anyway.

Overnight on Thursday, Russia began its ***ault on Kyiv with a volley of ballistic missiles followed by cruise missiles. Small-scale attacks over the past week or so have followed a similar pattern, relying on missile salvos rather than waves of drones.

Kim Barker contributed reporting.