Russian missiles and jet drones kill 12 around Kyiv on a sixth straight night

At least 12 people were killed and more than 20 wounded in Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region in the early hours of 1 September. It was the sixth consecutive night of heavy attacks on the capital. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired a significant number of jet-powered drones and ballistic missiles and that the strikes succeed when air-defence stocks run short.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said eight people died in the city and that five others, including two children, were injured. Fires burned in three districts. Oleksandr Pertsovskyi, head of Ukrainian Railways, said six of the dead at a depot on the left bank were employees of the state company and that a seventh victim was a colleague. A ballistic missile hit the depot and related facilities.

Four more people died in Boryspil, the town that hosts Kyiv's main airport. Regional governor Tymur Tkachenko said a residential building was hit and that 13 people were hurt there. Zelenskyy said 50 residents were evacuated from that block. Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said one of the dead in Boryspil was an Indian man who turned 26 on the day he was killed. Zelenskyy named the Indian death in his morning post and asked partners again for air defences.

Ukraine's air force said Russia attacked 28 locations, with the weight on Kyiv, Odesa and their outskirts. Defenders shot down five Iskander ballistic missiles, two Banderol missiles, five Kalibr cruise missiles and 187 of 218 drones. Officials no longer publish the full missile tally. Many of the drones were new jet models that fly faster than the older Shahed-type aircraft and are harder to catch. Guided bombs and drones on Odesa left thousands without power. The State Border Guard said the Orlivka ferry point on the Romanian frontier was hit, along with export infrastructure. Romania is a NATO member.

Russia's Defence Ministry said it struck military and energy sites in Kyiv and Odesa and in the regions around them. It also said one person died in a Ukrainian strike on Belgorod. Moscow's public line does not mention a railway depot or a housing block. Kyiv's public line does not treat those sites as military.

Zelenskyy said nearly 350 rescuers worked through the night. He spoke by phone with envoys of President Donald Trump. In Bishkek, Narendra Modi told Vladimir Putin the war needed to end for humanity's sake, according to Indian briefings of their contact around the SCO summit. None of those conversations added interceptors to Ukrainian batteries before dawn on 1 September.

The pattern of the week is attrition against a city that has already absorbed a blow. On Friday a Russian drone hit an ammunition store at Myla, west of Kyiv, killing 38 people as shells, mines and drones cooked off for hours and damaged nearby houses. Night after night of alerts is meant to empty magazines and to fray sleep. Jet drones raise the cost of each intercept. Patriots are the scarce item Zelenskyy keeps naming. The United States has not announced a fresh package timed to this six-day run.

Svitlana, 40, who lives in a damaged apartment building, told Reuters that people now live one day at a time because long plans collapse when the sirens start. That is not strategy. It is the civilian translation of an air war designed around stockpiles. The measurable questions for the rest of the week are whether the nightly count on Kyiv stays at six and growing, whether another foreign national is named among the dead, and whether any government that sat with Putin in Bishkek moves a single battery.