A Russian drone strike on a weapons storage facility on the outskirts of Kyiv has killed at least 37 people and forced the evacuation of nearly 400 residents, reigniting fury over the placement of explosive materials close to homes in a country now in the fifth year of full-scale war.
The attack, which struck late on Friday in the village of Myla in the Bucha district west of the capital, triggered a chain of detonations as shells, mines and stored drones ignited, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The blast damaged surrounding properties, including a care home for the elderly and disabled. Regional head Tymur Tkachenko said 42 people were injured, including four children, with rescue operations continuing into Saturday.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence confirmed it had struck “an ammunition depot” holding “components and launch boosters for FP-1/FP-2 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles,” framing the operation as a legitimate military target. The strike marks the second time in recent months that a munitions facility near Kyiv has detonated after an attack, and it has exposed bitter divisions within Ukraine over accountability for the loss of civilian life.
Anger in Myla and Official Reckoning
Residents surveying the wreckage on Saturday voiced disbelief that explosives had been permitted in their community. Liubov Pavlenko, 45, told the BBC her home was beyond repair. “Everything is completely damaged,” she said. “There are cracks all around the entire perimeter, and cracks around the windows. Basically, the structural integrity has been compromised.”
Borys Daniyluk, 61, was more pointed. “The authorities, the Ministry of Defence — why was this allowed at the depots, in a place where there used to be food? Why were ammunition and weapons stored there, next to a populated village? There are no words, just emotions.”
President Zelensky acknowledged that the storage site “definitely shouldn’t have been there” and announced that criminal proceedings had been opened on charges of official negligence. “In the fifth year of the full-scale invasion, making the same mistakes over and over is criminal negligence,” Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky wrote on Telegram. “Everyone responsible, without exception, must face severe punishment so that such situations never happen again.”
Ukraine’s prosecutor general said it was reviewing the “legality of the placement and storage of explosive objects and materials” near residential buildings in Myla, and that the actions of officials who authorised the arrangement would also come under scrutiny.
Echoes of Vyshneve
The disaster has drawn uncomfortable comparisons to a strike in July on an ammunition warehouse in Vyshneve, which caused a secondary detonation that killed nine, injured dozens and damaged more than 280 homes. An investigation into that incident identified serious failings by a state-owned company that had not complied with regulations on storing explosives near residential areas.
Koretsky said the lesson of Vyshneve had plainly not been learned. Zelensky went further, noting that “there are regulations in place — ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas” and promising that “appropriate conclusions will certainly be drawn.”
Zelensky indicated that the Myla depot had been operated by Ukraine’s armed forces. The admission has fuelled a broader debate about strategic vulnerability: with Russian aerial assaults now a near-nightly occurrence, the practice of siting munitions close to population centres has become untenable in the eyes of many Ukrainians.
A Wider Pattern of Strikes
Friday night’s devastation unfolded against a backdrop of intensifying aerial combat across the region. Tkachenko reported that a 14-year-old was killed in a separate attack in the Boryspil district, while Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said a two-year-old had died after a Russian drone crashed in the Obolonskyi district. Five people, including an 18-year-old girl, were injured in fresh strikes on the capital on Saturday morning.
Zelensky reported further overnight attacks in Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia. The Ukrainian army said it had shot down 233 Russian drones during the barrage, underscoring the sheer scale of Moscow’s aerial campaign.
Russia and Ukraine have sharply escalated their long-range operations in recent months. Kyiv has focused its strikes on Russian economic targets, including facilities belonging to Wildberries, the country’s largest online retailer, which Ukraine describes as a legitimate military objective because of alleged supply ties to Russia’s armed forces — a claim Moscow denies.
Russian online retailer Ozon said one of its logistics centres was struck in an overnight Ukrainian drone attack, and that it had suspended operations at a second site and evacuated staff “due to the danger in the area.” Facilities in Krasnodar, Dagestan, Stavropol and Adygea were targeted earlier in the week, resulting in injuries and widespread damage. In the Belgorod and Rostov regions, local officials said two people were killed and 25 injured in strikes over the past 24 hours, while the Moscow-appointed governor of occupied Zaporizhzhia reported four injuries after a Ukrainian strike hit a shopping centre.
Why it Matters
The Myla strike is more than a battlefield tragedy; it is a reckoning for Ukraine’s wartime governance. With civilian casualties climbing and trust in official decision-making eroding, the catastrophe exposes the tension between military necessity and the protection of non-combatants — a dilemma that will only deepen as both sides reach deeper into each other’s territory with drones and long-range weapons. For Kyiv, the imperative is now twofold: hold the line against Russia’s bombardment while ensuring that the defence of the nation does not, in the president’s own words, repeat the “terrible negligence” that turned a village depot into a graveyard.
