A major Russian drone and missile attack on Kyiv kills at least 21
people
[August 29, 2025]
By HANNA ARHIROVA and SAMYA KULLAB
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched a major air attack on Kyiv early on
Thursday that included a rare strike on the center of Ukraine's capital,
killing at least 21 people, wounding 48 and damaging European Union
diplomatic offices, authorities said.
The bombardment of drones and missiles was the first major Russian
attack on Kyiv in weeks as U.S.-led peace efforts to end the three-year
war struggled to gain traction. Britain said the attack sabotaged peace
efforts, while top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas summoned Russia’s EU envoy to
Brussels over the strikes that damaged EU offices.
The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting on airstrikes
against Ukraine on Friday afternoon at the request of Ukraine and the
five European council members — Britain, France, Slovenia, Denmark and
Greece. Two of Ukraine’s top envoys were set to meet Friday with the
Trump administration regarding mediation.
The Kremlin said Russia remained interested in continuing peace talks
despite Thursday's air attack, which was one of the war's biggest since
it began in 2022.
Among the dead were four children between 2 and 17, said Tymur Tkachenko,
the head of Kyiv’s city administration. He said more people could still
be under the rubble, and search and rescue efforts continued on Thursday
evening.
Also Thursday, the Trump administration approved a $825 million arms
sale to Ukraine that will include extended-range missiles and related
equipment to boost its defensive capabilities as U.S. efforts to broker
peace between Ukraine and Russia appear to have stalled. The State
Department said Ukraine would use funding from NATO allies Denmark, the
Netherlands and Norway in addition to U.S. foreign military financing to
pay for the equipment.
Rare attack on center of Kyiv
The attack was one of the few times Russian drones and missiles have
penetrated the heart of Kyiv since the start of the full-scale invasion.
Ukraine's Air Force said Russia launched 598 strike drones and decoys
and 31 missiles of different types across the country early Thursday,
most of them striking targets in Kyiv.
At least 33 locations across all 10 of the city's districts were
directly hit or damaged by debris, Tkachenko said. Thousands of windows
shattered as nearly 100 buildings were damaged, including a shopping
mall in the city center.
Oleksandr Khilko arrived at the scene after a missile hit the
residential building where his sister lives in the capital’s Darnytsia
district. He heard screams from people who were trapped under the rubble
and pulled out three survivors, including a boy.
“It’s inhuman, striking civilians,” Khilko said, his clothes covered in
dust and the tips of his fingers black with soot. “With every cell of my
body I want this war to end as soon as possible. I wait, but every time
the air raid alarm sounds, I am afraid.”
Sophia Akylina said her home in Kyiv's Holosiivskyi district was
damaged.
“It’s never happened before that they attacked so close,” the 21-year
old said. “Negotiations haven’t yielded anything yet, unfortunately
people are suffering.”
EU and UK summon Russian envoys after strikes hit their buildings
European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen said two strikes
landed 20 seconds apart about 50 meters (165 feet) from the EU Mission
to Ukraine building in Kyiv. She said no staff were injured in the
strike.
“No diplomatic mission should ever be a target. In response, we are
summoning the Russian envoy in Brussels,” Kaja Kallas, the European
Union’s top diplomat, said Thursday in a post on X.
The British Council, which promotes cultural relations and educational
opportunities, also said its Kyiv office had been “severely damaged” in
the attack and was closed to visitors until further notice.
The organization posted a photo showing the building with its windows
and entrance smashed open and surrounded by glass and debris. A guard
was injured and is “shaken but stable,” council chief executive Scott
McDonald posted on X.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said Russian President Vladimir
Putin was “sabotaging” hopes of peace following the “senseless” strikes.
The Russian ambassador to London was summoned to the foreign office.
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A pile of shattered glass from a storefront window sits outside a
salon as a hairdresser shampoos a client's hair, after Russia's
drone and missile attack that damaged residential buildings in
central Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025 (AP Photo/Danylo
Antoniuk)
Diplomatic efforts to reach peace have stalled
Thursday's attack is the first major combined Russian mass drone and
missile attack to strike Kyiv since U.S. President Donald Trump met
with Putin in Alaska earlier this month to discuss ending the war in
Ukraine.
“Russia chooses ballistics instead of the negotiating table,”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X
following the attack. “We expect a response from everyone in the
world who has called for peace but now more often stays silent
rather than taking principled positions.”
While a diplomatic push to end the war appeared to gain momentum
shortly after that meeting, few details have emerged about the next
steps.
Western leaders have accused Putin of dragging his feet in peace
efforts and avoiding serious negotiations while Russian troops move
deeper into Ukraine. This week, Ukrainian military leaders conceded
Russian forces have broken into an eighth region of Ukraine seeking
to capture more ground.
Zelenskyy hopes for harsher U.S. sanctions to cripple the Russian
economy if Putin does not demonstrate seriousness about ending the
war. He reiterated those demands following Thursday's attack.
Trump bristled this week at Putin’s stalling on an American proposal
for direct peace talks with Zelenskyy. Trump said Friday he expects
to decide on next steps in two weeks if direct talks aren’t
scheduled.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Thursday said it was “clear that
a meeting between President Zelenskyy and President Putin will not
take place."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt criticized both Putin
and Zelenskyy after the Thursday attack on Kyiv.
She said that Trump “was not happy about this news, but he was also
not surprised” by Russia’s Thursday air assault on the Ukrainian
capital.
Leavitt noted that Ukraine has also launched effective assaults on
Russia’s oil industry in recent weeks.
“Perhaps both sides of this war are not ready to end it themselves,”
Leavitt said. “The president wants it to end, but the leaders of
these two countries … must want it to end as well.”
Russia says it targeted 'military-industrial complex'
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it carried out a strike against
military air bases and companies “within Ukraine’s
military-industrial complex” using long-range weapons, including
Kinzhal missiles.
“All designated objects were hit,” the ministry said in a statement.
Ukraine has ramped up domestic arms production to fight Russia’s
invasion. Many weapons factories operate covertly, with some
embedded in civilian areas with superior air defenses.
Indiscriminate Russian attacks claiming to target Ukraine’s defense
industry have killed many civilians.
The Russian Defense Ministry also said it shot down 102 Ukrainian
drones overnight, mostly in the country’s southwest. A drone attack
sparked a blaze at the Afipsky oil refinery in the Krasnodar region,
local officials said, while a second fire was reported at the
Novokuibyshevsk refinery in the Samara region.
Ukrainian drones have repeatedly struck refineries and other oil
infrastructure in recent weeks in an attempt to weaken Russia’s war
economy, causing gas stations in some Russian regions to run dry and
prices to spike.
Ukraine’s national railway operator, Ukrzaliznytsia, reported damage
to its infrastructure in the Vinnytsia and Kyiv regions, causing
delays and requiring trains to use alternative routes.
___
Associated Press journalists Yehor Konovalov, Vasilisa Stepanenko
and Illia Novikov in Kyiv, Ukraine; Sam McNeil in Brussels; Katie
Marie Davies in Manchester, England; Daniel Niemann in Cologne,
Germany. and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
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