The Daily Populous Sunday September 28th, 2025 evening edition
Authored by theguardian.com and submitted by Beo1217

One of the worst bombardments of Kyiv since the start of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has killed at least four people in what Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as a “vile and cowardly” attack.

Russia launched nearly 600 drones and more than 40 cruise missiles in a bombardment that lasted more than 12 hours over Saturday night and into Sunday morning. The main targets were the Ukrainian capital and the regions of Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Odesa.

Ukraine’s president noted that the onslaught came at the close of UN general assembly week in New York, during which Donald Trump had expressed support for Kyiv. Zelenskyy called on allies to stop all Russian oil imports and promised his country would “strike back”.

“This is precisely how Russia shows its true position. Moscow wants to keep fighting and killing and deserves only the harshest pressure in the world,” he wrote on Telegram. “The Kremlin benefits from continuing this war and terror as long as energy revenues flow and the shadow fleet operates.”

Earlier, Kyiv echoed with the sound of anti-aircraft fire as waves of drones arrived in a grey dawn sky. Residents scrambled to take cover amid air raid sirens. A missile wiped out most of a street in the Petropavlivska Borshchahivka district, sheering off roofs and blowing out windows.

A falling concrete slab crushed and killed a 12-year-old girl, Oleksandra. Classmates left flowers and toys outside her gutted house. A neighbour, Liudmyla, described her as a happy and active girl who did sport and took English classes. She had just returned from Canada to go back to school in Kyiv. “A wonderful child. It’s such a shock,” Liudmyla said.

Other victims included a nurse and a patient who died when Kyiv’s cardiology institute took a direct hit. The body of another person was found under debris, officials said.

“There was a huge explosion around 6am. Everything started falling on our heads,” Lolita Isakova, 24, said. “We started to run in panic. There were booms and we couldn’t understand what was happening. My neighbour was covered in blood. He was screaming, looking for his wife and daughter. They were downstairs and OK. An ambulance took him away.” She added: “Russia is a terrorist state. Fuck them.”

Mark Serhiyiv, a 35-year-old army chaplain, said it was the second time Moscow had destroyed his home. “I still can’t believe that the children are alive. It’s such a blessing from God. They were right under the roof when it hit them. The roof was torn off right above my eldest son’s bed,” he said.

“I’m from Melitopol. They occupied the city and took my property. I moved to Kyiv in 2024. Our Russian neighbour is crazy. They shoot and deliberately kill civilians. This is our reality.”

More than 70 people were injured across the country, including three children whose high-rise apartment building was hit in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia.

On Sunday morning in Kyiv firefighters doused a burning car. Rescue workers and a digger shovelled up glass, masonry and twisted rebar.

The head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Andriy Yermak, said: “Once again, residential buildings and infrastructure are being hit. Once again, it is a war against civilians.” There will be a response to these actions. But the west’s economic blows against Russia must also be stronger.”

There was widespread international condemnation. The UK defence secretary, John Healey, said the bombardment had brought further death and destruction and showed that Putin was “committed to war”. He said Britain would step up its support for Kyiv in response to Moscow’s “illegal attacks”.

Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb, said Russia had again targeted civilians in cold blood. “This brutal attack … lays bare Russia’s false narratives of the war and again shows the world the true face of the aggressor,” he said. He called for additional EU sanctions against Moscow and for pressure to be put on its war machine.

Poland’s military said it had scrambled fighter jets and put ground-based air defence systems on high alert in response to the strikes on Ukraine. The moves were preventive and intended to secure Polish airspace and protect citizens, especially in border areas with Ukraine, the military said.

Poland closed the airspace near its southeastern cities of Lublin and Rzeszów, a key hub for aid to Ukraine, for several hours.

Speaking on Saturday in Kyiv after meeting Trump at the UN in New York, Zelenskyy had warned that Russia was preparing for a wider European conflict. “Putin will not wait for the war in Ukraine to end. He will open some other front. No one knows which one. But there is no doubt that he wants it,” he said.

He made his remarks after drone sightings in Denmark, Poland and Romania and the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets. Denmark’s army said on Sunday that drones had been spotted flying over Danish military sites for the second night running.

Zelenskyy suggested EU governments were struggling to deal with this new and dangerous threat. Ukraine spotted 92 drones flying towards Poland in a “choreographed” way earlier this month. It intercepted most of them, but 19 crossed into Polish territory where four were shot down.

Russia claimed its strikes on Sunday were against Ukrainian military facilities. Earlier it denied it was responsible for drone incursions and said it had no plans to attack Nato member states. The Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told the UN general assembly: “Any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response.”

Speaking to reporters later, Lavrov said that if any country downed objects still within Russian airspace, “they will very much regret it”.

Monnoppoly on September 28th, 2025 at 13:57 UTC »

This attack was funded by everyone who trades with Russia. It's time for maximum sanctions against Russia.

thesweeterpeter on September 28th, 2025 at 13:05 UTC »

This is going to be a really rough fall.

It feels like Russia doesn't want to go into another winter with this.

John_Williams_1977 on September 28th, 2025 at 13:05 UTC »

12 hours of attacks killed less than half a dozen people.

This war is just an appalling farce. It’s just pettiness and stupidity.

It’s time for NATO to end it. Give Ukraine what it needs to finish off the western based oil refineries and this war stops.

Let’s stop messing around. Hell, we can just build Ukraine’s cruise missiles if we’re too pathetic to give them ours.