A Russian attack on Kyiv killed one person and injured at least 16 others while the capital remained under an air-raid alert for more than six hours on Wednesday, Sept. 9.
The Kyiv City Prosecutor’s Office reported that the casualty figures were 14 as of 6:15 p.m. local time.
According to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko’s latest update at 8:15 p.m. local time, 16 people had been injured in the capital, including two children.
A 67-year-old woman was killed in the Dniprovskyi district when a drone struck a building near where she was standing. A 74-year-old man and women aged 69 and 57 were injured in the same district, alongside a 15-year-old boy, and a 16-year-old girl.
“A pretrial investigation has been opened into a suspected war crime committed by Russian military personnel that resulted in the woman’s death, under Part 2 of Article 438 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.
Residential areas hit, 35 vehicles damaged
In the Darnytskyi district, a Russian drone struck a residential building on Wednesday morning, injuring nine people.
Most of the victims sustained shrapnel wounds or acute stress reactions, the prosecutors reported. Among the injured was a 30-year old pregnant woman.
The attack damaged civilian infrastructure, including six apartment buildings, a kindergarten, and warehouse facilities. Thirty-five vehicles were damaged as well.
Constant drone alerts
Russian drones triggered repeated air-raid warnings throughout the day.
Earlier on Wednesday, a drone hit a 24-story residential building in the Darnytskyi district at the level of the 11th and 12th floors, sparking a fire on the 12th floor, while also destroying several walls.
Falling debris ignited fires in open areas of the district.
In the afternoon, Kyiv authorities issued another air-raid warning, reporting that a jet-powered drone was flying over the city.
“Kyiv is under a UAV attack. We ask city residents to proceed immediately to the nearest shelters,” the Kyiv City Military Administration (KMVA) said.
The barrage follows US envoys’ departure
Russia has continued to intensify attacks on Kyiv, the surrounding region, and Ukraine nationwide, following the latest visit from senior US envoys’ Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner throughout the weekend.
The envoys visited Kyiv for the first time during their tenure as Washington’s intermediaries.
Consultations in Kyiv began with bilateral discussions between President Volodymyr Zelensky and the American emissaries, followed by a multilateral session that included national security advisers from the UK, France, and Germany.
Witkoff and Kushner also visited Moscow and held more than three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday evening, Sept. 5. Formal discussions were followed by an informal working dinner.
At the start of the meeting, Putin noted that Russian forces had halted strikes on Kyiv starting at midnight on Sept. 5. He said that the request for a temporary pause had been transmitted through official diplomatic and intelligence channels.
However, he also explicitly rejected Ukraine’s call for a wider three-day ceasefire across the entire front line.
Under a newly introduced two-tier system, Kyiv issued a red missile threat warning on the evening of Monday, Sept. 7, citing a heightened risk of missile or massive drone attacks despite the three-day ceasefire.
According to Ukraine’s Air Force, the attack on Kyiv began on the evening of Sept. 7 and continued through the night, with the death toll eventually rising to five on Wednesday afternoon.
At 10:01 p.m. local time, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (SES) announced that the number of wounded had risen to 35. The constant threat of repeated strikes had forced rescuers to retreat into shelters throughout the day, delaying efforts to fully extinguish the fires and assess the damage.
“Enemy shelling has continued nonstop since last night,” the SES said.
Despite Witkoff and Kushner describing their weekend meetings as substantial and productive, and despite the Kremlin signaling openness for further trilateral talks, Russia’s escalating strikes across Ukraine have raised doubts about whether the negotiations can deliver meaningful progress toward ending the war.