Almost 40 killed in major Russian attack on Kyiv region

The attack sparked a fire in the Bucha district, west of the capital, that swept through homes and damaged at least 50 residential buildings, local officials said.

In a statement on the attack, 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 Ukrainian law bans the storage of ammunition close to civilian homes and criminal proceedings had been opened.

“Those who allowed this to happen must be held accountable for their decisions,” Mr Zelensky said.

The Ukrainian leader also wrote that a care home for elderly people and people with disabilities had been damaged, and an evacuation from the area was ongoing.

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 regional administration, said attacks had damaged homes and apartment blocks, and that one child was among the injured.

Earlier in the week, Mr Prokudin said Russia had intensified attacks on critical infrastructure in the region, which is about 70% under Russian control.

He also urged tens of thousands of residents to move to safer regions because of the possibility of prolonged power and heating outages this winter.