At least three people have been killed, 18 wounded, and dozens of buildings set on fire in Kyiv, including the seat of the government, following a Russian drone and missile attack in Ukraine‘s capital, according to officials and local news reports.
Ukraine said Russia launched 805 drones and decoys and 13 missiles overnight into Sunday. It was the largest such attack since the full-scale invasion. Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force, confirmed to The Associated Press news agency.
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Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko was initially quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying that the attack early on Sunday killed an infant and a young woman, and sparked fires at several high-rise buildings in the city’s west and east.
Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s city administration, later confirmed the body of a one-year-old child was dug out of the rubble by rescuers.
Medics were called to the leafy Darnytskyi district to the east of the Dnipro River, where a four-storey apartment building caught fire from the debris of drones destroyed in the overnight attack, Klitschko added.
Drone debris also caused fires atop a 16-storey and two nine-storey buildings in the Sviatoshynskyi district in Kyiv’s west, he said.
Witnesses told Reuters they heard a series of explosions shaking the city, which sounded like air defence units in operation.
The Ukrainian news website Kyiv Independent also reported that an elderly woman died in a shelter in the city’s Darnytskyi district following the attack, although the cause of her death was not immediately clear.
The state emergency service confirmed at least one death in Kyiv and 18 injuries.
The attacks, which also knocked out power in the city, left smoke rising from the roof of Ukraine’s cabinet, housing the offices of its ministers.
Smoke rises over a building of the Ukrainian government headquarters [Serhii Korovainyi/Reuters]
“For the first time, the government building was damaged by an enemy attack, including the roof and upper floors,” said Ukraine’s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko. “We will restore the buildings, but lost lives cannot be returned.”
“The world must respond to this destruction not only with words, but with actions. There is a need to strengthen sanctions pressure, primarily against Russian oil and gas,” she said.
Russia ramps up attacks on Ukraine
Russian attacks on Ukraine have increased in recent days, even as United States President Donald Trump stepped up diplomacy to end the three-and-a-half-year war, although those efforts have not yet been successful.
Al Jazeera’s Zein Basravi, reporting from Ukraine’s central region of Dnipropetrovsk, said, “What we see here is the increase in the use of unmanned aerial vehicles by Russia, which gives them a capacity to spread widely across the country, and these are certainly indicative of the fact that Russia is escalating attacks”.
A police officer stands near the site of an apartment building damaged during a Russian drone attack early on September 7, 2025 [Thomas Peter/Reuters]
Tkachenko, the head of the military administration of the capital, said on Telegram that Russia was “deliberately and consciously striking civilian targets”.
Moscow did not immediately issue any comment on the attacks.
Both sides deny targeting civilians, but thousands have died in the war Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Early on Sunday, most of Ukraine was under air raid alerts after Ukrainian air force warnings of Russian missile and drone attacks.
Tens of explosions shook the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, cutting power to parts of it, Mayor Vitalii Maletskyi said on Telegram.
Russian strikes on Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown, in the same region, targeted transport and urban infrastructure, Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the military administration, said on Telegram, but with no injuries reported.
In the southern city of Odesa, civilian infrastructure and residential buildings were damaged, with fires breaking out in several apartment blocks, regional Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
Earlier, a separate Russian attack in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region killed one person and wounded several others, regional military Governor Oleh Hryhorov said on Telegram.
A Russian drone attack on Saturday evening in Zaporizhia in the southeast also wounded at least 15 people, four of whom were hospitalised, said Ivan Fedorov, the head of the military administration in the region, which is partially occupied by Russia.
Gradual Russian frontline advance
On the battlefield, Russian forces are making slow but steady gains, Basravi reported.
Russian forces have been “expanding the boundaries all across the eastern front to try to create a so-called grey zone”, he said.
“The Ukrainian military is saying that Russia is now shifting its tactics; it’s recently started to deploy small, experienced marine units, they say, that are trying to avoid direct clashes with Ukrainian forces that are putting up stiff resistance.
“The front line is moving in Russia’s favour, but Ukrainian forces have slowed that advance since the offensive began in March to a crawl at this stage”, Basravi said.
Kyiv says it caused ‘comprehensive fire damage’ to Russian pipeline
Meanwhile, the commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Robert Brovdi, said it attacked the Druzhba oil pipeline in Russia’s Bryansk region.
Brovdi posted on Telegram that “comprehensive fire damage” was inflicted on the pipeline.
The transit pipeline supplies Russian oil to Hungary and Slovakia.
Moscow has not commented on the Ukrainian claim.
The Russian air defence units reported that they destroyed at least 69 Ukrainian drones overnight, according to the RIA Novosti state news agency.