A Russian drone struck a nine-storey apartment building in Kyiv early on Thursday, killing a 44-year-old woman and injuring seven other people, in the latest deadly attack on the Ukrainian capital.

The drone hit the residential block in the Solomianskyi district, setting apartments on the third to sixth floors on fire and partly destroying the fifth floor, according to the Kyiv prosecutor’s office and the city’s military administration. Three people were rescued from the building, and rescuers and Red Cross volunteers carried the body of the woman from the damaged block as firefighters worked through the morning.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko confirmed that a drone had hit the building. Explosions were heard across the capital in the early hours of Thursday, a Reuters witness reported.

A night of missiles and drones

The attack began at 18:00 on Wednesday and continued through the night, Ukraine’s air force said. Russia used ballistic and anti-ship missiles and 123 strike drones, including 73 jet-powered Shahed drones, according to Ukrainian reporting of the overnight assault. Seventeen locations were struck and debris fell at 18 others.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had carried out a massive overnight strike on military factories across Ukraine. It said it had hit a rocket factory in Kyiv, a drone assembly workshop and a missile fuel factory in the wider Kyiv region, as well as electricity substations in the western Zhytomyr region.

The Kyiv prosecutor’s office said seven residents were hurt, most of them suffering acute stress reactions. Early reports gave conflicting injury tolls as emergency services continued their work at the scene, with the figures later updated as rescuers reached more of the building.

Attacks continue despite peace talks

The strike came on the same day that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss the latest round of Ukraine negotiations in Abu Dhabi, which ended without a breakthrough. Residents of the capital have voiced deep scepticism about the peace efforts as the nightly bombardment continues.

President Volodymyr Zelensky also warned on Thursday of renewed disruption to Starshield, the military-grade version of Elon Musk’s Starlink service, which is critical to Ukraine’s military operations. He said the service had faced “significant disruptions” in recent days, hampering Kyiv’s ability to intercept Russian drones. “These are not random errors but systematic speed restrictions,” he said. SpaceX, which owns Starshield, told CNN there had been no change in its service.

Sources: h.ua | Devdiscourse | CNN