Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has ordered military officials to stand accountable after at least 37 people were killed when a Russian drone struck a warehouse in the village of Myla, west of Kyiv, sparking a massive fire that swept through residential areas and damaged dozens of homes.
The attack, one of the deadliest single strikes to hit Ukraine this year, drew immediate condemnation from Ukrainian leadership as officials launched criminal proceedings against those responsible for storing materials near civilian housing. Zelensky vowed punishment for those who “allowed this to happen.”
Fire Sweeps Through Neighbourhood
Emergency services battled through the night as flames tore through the Bucha district following the strike. At least 50 residential buildings sustained damage as the fire spread unchecked for hours.
A care home housing elderly people and individuals with disabilities was among the structures caught in the blaze. Evacuation efforts continued into Saturday morning as responders worked to clear affected areas.
“This is a tragedy that should never have happened,” said local official Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration. “We are doing everything possible to save lives and bring those responsible to justice.”
Leadership Faces Scrutiny
The warehouse strike comes just weeks after a similar attack on an ammunition depot in the Kyiv suburb of Vyshneve killed 22 people and triggered large-scale detonations that destroyed nearby homes. Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi expressed outrage that previous warnings appear to have gone unheeded.
“Unfortunately, we can already see that the terrible tragedy in Vyshneve did not become a lesson,” Koretskyi said. “In the fifth year of a full-scale invasion, making the same mistakes is criminal negligence. And all those guilty, without exception, must be severely punished so that such situations do not happen again.”
Zelensky later announced that two officials from state-owned companies, including representatives from Ukroboronprom, Ukraine’s largest arms producer, had illegally permitted weapons storage at the Vyshneve site and would face consequences.
Russia’s defence ministry confirmed it had targeted a warehouse in Myla storing components and launch boosters for long-range drones. The ministry added that strikes had also hit ports at Mykolaiv and Izmail, along with logistics centres in the Kyiv region.
Ukraine Vows Drone Response
Three consecutive days of relentless Russian air raids have paralysed Kyiv, disrupting civilian life across the capital more than four-and-a-half years after Moscow’s full-scale invasion began.
Pavlo Palisa, deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, acknowledged the growing threat from Russia’s expanded use of jet-powered drones. “Means of attack always outpace means of defence. We will certainly need to adapt. It will take time,” he told journalists on Saturday.
Ukraine has intensified its own long-range drone operations in recent months, targeting Russian military industries and energy facilities to erode Moscow’s capacity to fund the war.
Zelensky announced an ambitious escalation in his Friday evening address to the nation. “Right now, we average over 300 of our long-range sanctions,” he said, using his preferred term for long-range drone attacks. “There must be more. We have a very specific goal, and we will achieve it.”
The target: 1,000 Ukrainian drone launches into Russian territory every day.
Russia’s defence ministry reported destroying 313 Ukrainian drones overnight, while Ukrainian attacks wounded 11 people in Russia’s Rostov region, including four children.
In the southern Kherson region, where approximately 70 per cent remains under Russian occupation, strikes on Saturday killed two people and wounded 27 more. Regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin warned that tens of thousands of residents should relocate to safer areas ahead of winter, citing anticipated power and heating outages.
Why it Matters
This strike exposes a dangerous pattern: repeated ammunition storage failures that turn military sites into civilian death traps. With Zelensky demanding 1,000 daily drone launches against Russian territory, the conflict is entering a new phase of escalation that threatens to push both sides toward increasingly aggressive long-range strikes. The deaths of 37 people in a single attack underscore the brutal cost of a war that shows no signs of ending, while Ukraine’s push to dramatically increase drone production and deployment could fundamentally alter the battlefield dynamics—or invite devastating retaliation that further endangers Ukrainian civilians.
