Russia Fires 188 Drones and Missiles at Kyiv Power Grid, Killing 7
Ukraine’s air force says it downed 160 of 188 drones and missiles fired overnight; Zelenskyy says seven civilians died as Kyiv’s power grid was the main target.
KYIV — Sep 30, 2026 — Russia launched 188 attack drones plus anti-ship and ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, aiming mainly at energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the surrounding region, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said seven civilians were killed nationwide, according to the Associated Press. Ukraine’s air force said its defenses destroyed or jammed 160 of the incoming weapons, but strikes were still recorded at 18 locations.
What the air force reported
Ukraine’s Air Force said the attack began from 6 p.m. on Sept. 29. Zircon and Oniks anti-ship missiles were launched from Russia’s Kursk region, and Iskander-M and S-400 ballistic missiles were fired from the Voronezh and Bryansk regions. The 188 drones, 86 of them jet-powered, included Shahed and Gerbera attack drones and Parodiya decoys launched from several Russian cities and from occupied Donetsk and Crimea, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing the air force.
As of 8 a.m., air defenses had downed or suppressed five missiles and 155 drones, the air force said. Kyiv Oblast was the main target. ABC News reported that Russia’s Defense Ministry described its targets as a communications center in Kyiv, energy facilities in the Kyiv region and port infrastructure in Izmail, and claimed its own forces had shot down at least 384 Ukrainian drones overnight. Those Russian claims were not independently verified.
Casualties and damage
Casualty figures rose through the morning. Early reports cited by RBC-Ukraine counted five dead, including a child, and 14 injured. By midday the AP reported seven civilians killed and 24 wounded nationwide, according to Zelenskyy, who gave no breakdown. In the capital, authorities reported three people killed and four injured, with fires in four districts, while a boy was killed when a private home in Vyshhorod, north of Kyiv, was destroyed, regional military administration head Tymur Tkachenko said. Separate guided-bomb strikes on Sumy killed two people over the past day, the Kyiv Independent reported.
Zelenskyy called it “a difficult attack” and said crews were working to restore electricity and water where supplies had been cut. Critical infrastructure was hit in the Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Kirovohrad and Rivne regions, RBC-Ukraine reported, and damage was recorded in Odesa, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson and Cherkasy. Russia’s Defense Ministry said it hit a hydroelectric plant, a thermal power plant, a substation, an energy storage facility and a data center. Ukrainian officials did not confirm those specific claims; the AP noted that Kyiv withholds details to deny Moscow information on the effectiveness of its strikes.
Winter campaign fears
Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said there had been “virtually no day since summer” without Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, but that such a “massive and combined attack” had not happened since the end of the last heating season. Ukrainian officials have warned that Moscow is trying to “weaponize winter,” and the AP said the strike raised questions about whether that campaign has begun.
The pressure is also visible in the drone numbers. Air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said Russia fired 2,850 jet-propelled drones in August and had already launched 3,177 in September as of Tuesday, the AP reported. Jet-powered drones and ballistic missiles are harder to intercept, and Ihnat said Ukraine needs more missiles for its U.S.-made Patriot systems and for other ground-based air defenses. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the increase has produced “days of almost uninterrupted air raid alerts.”
Zelenskyy thanked partners for recent air-defense packages. “Every interceptor missile truly saves lives,” he wrote on Telegram, adding that “the closer we get to winter, the more of this protection we need.”
The attack also pulled in neighboring airspace. NATO aircraft were scrambled in Poland and Romania, and a drone damaged a communications antenna in Moldova’s Anenii Noi district, ABC News reported. Ukrainian officials say Moscow is not engaging with U.S. efforts to halt the fighting, while Moscow says it wants a comprehensive settlement rather than a temporary truce, according to the AP.
Sources
- Ukrainska Pravda: Russia attacks with Zircon, Oniks, Iskander missiles and 188 drones
- AP: Russia pounds Ukraine with missiles and drones, killing 7
- ABC News: Russian strikes kill 3 in Kyiv, prompt NATO to scramble aircraft
- RBC-Ukraine: Kyiv’s energy infrastructure was main target
