A person stands in a destroyed apartment in a damaged residential building following an air strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 14, 2025, amid the Russian invasion. (Oleksii Filippov / AFP via Getty Images)
Editor’s note: This is a developing story and is being updated.
Russia launched a large-scale aerial attack on Kyiv overnight on Nov. 13-14, battering the capital with hundreds of drones and multiple missiles, killing at least seven people and injuring at least 29 others.
Nine of the injured victims — including one pregnant woman — have been hospitalized. Two children, ages 7 and 10, are among the injured, local authorities reported.
“A wicked attack,” President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted. “About 430 drones and 18 missiles were used in the strike, including ballistic and aeroballistic missiles.”
“Sadly, four people have been killed,” he added. Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko later revised the death toll up to six having earlier said casualty reports were delayed as suspected fatalities were trapped under rubble.
Several explosions were reported in Kyiv beginning around 12:45 a.m. local time, according to Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground. Additional waves of explosions were reported in the following hours.
“The Russians are striking residential buildings,” Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko warned amid the strikes. “Many high-rise buildings across Kyiv have been affected, in almost every district,” he added.
Natalia Khodymchuk, widow of Valerii Khodymchuk, the first victim of the 1986 Chornobyl disaster, died after suffering severe injuries.
The State Agency for Exclusion Zone Management said Khodymchuk, 73, was critically wounded when a drone struck a residential building in the Troieshchyna district, completely burning her apartment.
She was taken to the Burn Center near the Chernihivska metro station, but doctors were unable to save her life.
The scene in the Heroiv Dnipra area of Kyiv after a mass Russian missile and drone attack overnight on Kyiv, Ukraine on Nov. 14, 2025. (Nastia Kasinchuk/The Kyiv Independent)
“We fell asleep a little bit and then boom — there was smoke in the apartment, we began to suffocate,” Dmytro, who lives with his wife and three-year-old son Denys in an apartment building in the Desnianskyi District, told the Kyiv Independent. It was here where the five deaths occurred when the building was damaged by a Shahed-type drone during the attack.
“It was such a strong blast that everyone got up, took what we could, and left.”
Despite the ordeal, Dmytro reflects that his family were lucky.
“A meter away from us, last night, literally a meter to the left, a meter up, and this would have been our apartment,” he said.
Zelensky said the Azerbaijan embassy had also been damaged by fragments of an Iskander-M ballistic missile.
Azerbaijan embassy damaged after yet another mass Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 14, 2025. (Olena Zashko/The Kyiv Independent)
Kyiv Independent journalists reported power outages in several districts of the city during the attacks. Ukraine’s Energy Minsitry said there outages in Donetsk, Kyiv, and Odesa oblasts. “We urge consumers to use electricity rationally throughout the day,” it added.
Russia launched ballistic and cruise missiles, as well as “many drones,” at Ukraine’s energy facilities, Vitaly Zaichenko, head of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-grid operator, told the Kyiv Independent.
Falling missile debris damaged a distribution network as well as a water pipeline in a thermal power plant in Kyiv Oblast, he said.
“We are doing our best to repair the system,” Zaichenko said, adding: “Without future attacks, we believe we will be able to recover all our energy consumption in three weeks.”
At least 11 multi-story buildings throughout Kyiv were struck in the overnight attack, according to Klitschko.
Rescuers evacuated over 40 people from targeted buildings, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said. The agency reported strikes, fires, and evacuations at residential buildings in Kyiv’s Podilskyi, Dniprovskyi, Desnianskyi, Solomianskyi, Sviatoshynskyi, and Obolonskyi districts.
A fire broke out on the 5th-8th floors of a high-rise building in the Desnianskyi district, killing one person.
The aftermath of Russia’s overnight drone and missile attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 14, 2025. The attack damaged residential buildings across the city. (Olena Zashko/The Kyiv Independent)Kyiv residents at the sight of Russia’s overnight drone and missile attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 14, 2025. (Olena Zashko/The Kyiv Independent)
The attacks also damaged a hospital, a school, and wooden buildings at a sports facility, the State Emergency Service reported.
Eighty-one-year-old Valentina also lives in a residential building in Desnianskyi District, and said her apartment “shook like an earthquake” during the attack.
“It’s scary each time, you shouldn’t get used to missiles,” she told the Kyiv Independent.
“As long as Russia exists, there won’t be peace anywhere. They don’t let anyone live. So we hope there will be a day when it disappears. They have been oppressing us for 400 years.”
Klitschko reported that sections of the district heating network were damaged in the strikes. Emergency crews are assessing the extent of the damage.
While buildings burned in Kyiv, Ukraine’s Air Force reported waves of drones targeting the country’s central, southern, and eastern regions. Monitoring groups reported that upwards of 120 drones and decoys were bound for the capital. Dozens of cruise and ballistic missile were also launched towards various regions of Ukraine, the Air Force said.
In Kyiv Oblast, six people were injured in the overnight attack, including a child, Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said. Four victims were hospitalized due to cuts, burns, and head contusions. A 7-year-old boy suffered a facial injury and received medical treatment.
The clean-up operation after yet another mass Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv, Ukraine, on Nov. 14, 2025. (Olena Zashko/The Kyiv Independent)
Homes, warehouses, industrial sites, and cars in the region were hit in the attack, Kalashnyk reported.
“I’m simply speechless,” Dmytro said. “You can’t fight against civilians like that. And even if you are fighting, have a conscience, fight against soldiers instead of civilians, grandmothers, old people, animals who are just sleeping in their beds.”
Russia has regularly launched large-scale attacks on Ukrainian cities since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In recent months, Moscow has intensified attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in an attempt to plunge Ukraine into another harsh winter.
In the most recent large-scale attack on Nov. 8, Ukrainian cities sustained “one of the largest direct ballistic missile attacks on energy facilities” since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, then-Energy Minister Svitlana Hrynchuk said.
The attack forced Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, to implement over 12 hours of emergency power cuts to stabilize the energy situation.
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