Russian drone strike on Kyiv-area depot kills at least 37

A Russian drone strike on a warehouse west of Kyiv killed at least 37 people and injured 42 others, Ukrainian officials said on Saturday. The attack hit a depot in the village of Myla, in the Bucha district, where shells, mines and other ammunition were stored. President Volodymyr Zelensky said the first impact triggered a large-scale detonation of shells, mines, munitions and drones.

The blast damaged at least 50 residential buildings, including a care home for the elderly and disabled, and forced the evacuation of more than 370 people. Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration, said four children were among the injured. Local media later reported that 34 of the dead were residents of the care home.

Zelensky said the storage site "definitely shouldn't have been there" and announced criminal proceedings on charges of official negligence. "There are regulations in place; ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas," he said. Ukraine's prosecutor general's office said it was reviewing the legality of storing explosives near residential buildings in Myla.

The warehouse was a depot owned by the Ukrainian military, according to Zelensky. Russia's Ministry of Defence said it had hit an ammunition depot in Myla holding components and launch boosters for long-range drones. The strike was the deadliest single attack of the war this year, surpassing the 31 people killed in a July 2 strike on Kyiv.

Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said the tragedy showed lessons had not been learned from a July attack on a munitions depot in Vyshneve that killed 22 people. "In the fifth year of a full-scale invasion, making the same mistakes is criminal negligence," he said on Telegram. "And all those guilty, without exception, must be severely punished so that such situations do not happen again."

"At about 8 p.m., the drone hit a warehouse somewhere and then the detonation began," Oleksandr Vodolaz, a village resident, told The Associated Press. "No one knew that weapons were stored there." Liubov Pavlenko, whose home is about 200 metres from the warehouse, said the structural integrity of her house had been compromised.

The attack came during a period of intensified Russian aerial strikes on the Ukrainian capital. Kyiv officials say Russia builds up missile stocks and launches major attacks every few days.