Almost 40 killed in major Russian attack on Kyiv region

At least 37 people have been killed in a Russian attack on the Bucha district, close to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Tymur Tkachenko, head of the local regional military administration, said at least 50 residential buildings had been damaged in the attack on Saturday, which also sparked a large-scale fire that spread to homes and a restaurant.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a warehouse had been struck in the village of Myla “followed by a detonation”.

He did not give details on the site, but wrote in the same message that criminal proceedings had been opened on charges of official negligence.

“There are regulations in place – ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas,” he said.

The Ukrainian leader wrote that a care home for elderly people and people with disabilities and residential buildings were damaged.

“More than 370 people have already been evacuated, and the evacuation is ongoing,” he said.

In a statement, Russia’s ministry of defence said it had hit a warehouse in Myla storing components and launch boosters for long-range drones.

It also said it had attacked the ports of Mykolaiv and Izmail, as well as a logistics centre and warehouse facilities storing parts for Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missiles in the Kyiv region.

Almost constant air raids in Kyiv have now reached their third day, choking the economy in the Ukrainian capital and severely disrupting civilian life more than four-and-a-half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

Elsewhere, Russian attacks across Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on Saturday killed two people and wounded 27 more, a local official said.

Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the region administration, said attacks had damaged homes and apartment blocks, and that one child was among the injured.