Russian ballistic missiles hit Kyiv as Zelensky says Russia attacked energy sites 76 times in a week

Russian ballistic missiles struck Kyiv on Sunday evening 18 October, local time, killing one person and injuring two, the Kyiv City Military Administration said as of 00:11 Kyiv time on Monday.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a medical facility in the Desnianskyi district and a non-residential building in the Dniprovskyi district were damaged. A senior Ukrainian official told The Kyiv Independent that the air raid alert sounded only as the missiles hit. In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said a drone struck a 16-storey residential building, injuring two people, NV reported.

Earlier on Sunday, regional officials said a 27-year-old woman was killed and two people, including a six-year-old child, were injured in the Zaporizhzhia region, and that a drone strike in the Poltava region killed a woman and injured four people. Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched 180 drones and one Iskander-M ballistic missile overnight into Sunday, and that 152 drones were shot down. It recorded hits at 20 locations.

Zelensky said on X that Russia had attacked Ukraine’s energy and oil and gas sectors 76 times since Trump announced an energy ceasefire a week earlier. He said Russia had used nearly 2,700 attack drones, 1,700 guided aerial bombs and 66 missiles over the past week, and accused Moscow of seeking a blackout, RFE/RL reported. “America should see that Russia is not taking any reciprocal steps,” he said.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was responding with systematic, large-scale strikes. “The Kyiv regime is resisting, but this cannot change the course of events,” he said, according to TASS, as reported by The Guardian. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had struck a steelworks in Kryvyi Rih, vessels at Odesa port and an electrical substation in the Zhytomyr region on Saturday.

Casualty and damage figures from both sides could not be independently verified.

Background

Russia has struck Ukraine’s power grid repeatedly ahead of winter, and Ukraine has carried out long-range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries and terminals. US President Donald Trump announced an energy ceasefire on 11 October, but both sides have reported continued strikes since. Zelensky said Ukraine was in contact with US envoys on the next steps in diplomacy.