Russian strike on Ukrainian warehouse kills 37 in war's deadliest attack this year
At least 37 people were killed when a Russian drone hit a warehouse west of Kyiv storing ammunition, setting off explosions and fires that gutted dozens of nearby homes and buildings, Ukrainian officials said on…
Source: Associated Press · August 30, 2026 at 1:01 PM · AI-assisted report
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KUALA LUMPUR, 30 AUGUST 2026 —
At least 37 people were killed when a Russian drone hit a warehouse west of Kyiv storing ammunition, setting off explosions and fires that gutted dozens of nearby homes and buildings, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday.
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The Friday night strike on the warehouse in the village of Myla, Bucha district, was the war’s deadliest attack in 2026 and capped two days of near-continuous Russian bombardment around the capital. Residential buildings were damaged and more than 370 people evacuated as fires spread through the area, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Bucha regional military administration, told local media.
Thirty-four of the dead were residents of a care home for the elderly and disabled, he said.
“At about 8 p.m., the drone hit a warehouse somewhere and then the detonation began,” said Oleksandr Vodolaz, a Myla resident. “No one knew that weapons were stored there.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attack a “terrible situation” and blamed “terrible negligence” for storing explosives near civilians. He said Ukrainian law bars ammunition near residences and that criminal proceedings had been opened. In a social media post, he said the warehouse held shells, mines, other ammunition and drones that detonated.
Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi compared the Myla strike to a July attack on the Kyiv suburb of Vyshneve that killed 22 people. “Making the same mistakes is criminal negligence,” Koretskyi said. “All those guilty must be severely punished.”
The toll of 37 dead surpassed the 31 killed in a July 2 strike on Kyiv, which had been the deadliest attack of the year until Saturday.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had targeted a drone-component warehouse in Myla, as well as ports in Mykolaiv and Izmail, plus a logistics hub and Flamingo cruise-missile parts storage in the Kyiv region. It did not say whether these strikes were linked to the Myla explosions.
In southern Kherson, which is roughly 70% under Russian control, regional head Oleksandr Prokudin said two people were killed and 27 wounded, including a child, when Russian fire damaged homes and apartment blocks on Saturday. Prokudin said Russia had stepped up attacks on critical infrastructure there and urged tens of thousands of residents to relocate ahead of possible prolonged winter power and heating outages.
Ukraine’s Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of the presidential office, said Russia had sharply increased use of jet-powered drones and that their numbers would keep rising. “Means of attack always outpace means of defense,” Palisa told reporters. He said Ukrainian interceptors had not yet shown the required effectiveness, though work was under way.
Ukraine has meanwhile boosted long-range drone strikes on Russian military-industrial and energy sites to erode Moscow’s war funding and pressure Russian civilians. President Zelenskyy said Kyiv aimed to launch 1,000 long-range strikes daily, up from an average of more than 300. “We have a very specific goal, and we will achieve it,” he said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed its forces shot down 313 Ukrainian drones overnight. In Russia’s Rostov region, Governor Yuri Slyusar said nine people were hospitalized, including four children, after Ukrainian drones wounded 11.