The Japan Times - Russian barrage on Kyiv kills 17 as Ukraine calls for more interceptors

Kyiv was unable to shoot down any of the missiles launched by Russia, whose intensifying attacks have prompted Kyiv to plead for more US-made Patriot interceptors.

Russia has significantly upped its attacks on the Ukrainian capital in recent months, typically firing salvos of hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles in short blitzes that rock buildings and send booms echoing across the city.

"Ballistic interceptors are what could have saved the lives of those killed today," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, announcing the 17-person death toll.

Later Wednesday, Zelensky said he had been in talks with NATO chief Mark Rutte about getting interceptor missiles.

"It is important to cut through all red tape and make the necessary political decisions," he said on Facebook.

"Literally every day, people's lives here in Ukraine depend on the resolve of our partners in Europe and the United States."

A cloud of smoke hovered over the capital at sunrise, AFP journalists saw, after the attacks sparked fires in several locations in the region.

Over 40 people were wounded in the capital and its surrounding areas, local authorities said.

AFP journalists heard explosions in Kyiv after midnight (2100 GMT Tuesday), following Ukrainian air force warnings of incoming ballistic missiles.

One journalist reported seeing dark smoke and the acrid smell of burning lingering in the air hours later.

- 'We were lucky today' -

"The night was so terrifying, so hard," Kyiv resident Natalia Reutska told AFP in the morning after the attack.

"We've gotten used to waking up thinking, 'we were lucky today,' and that's very scary," she added.

Ukraine did shoot down 98 of the 115 drones fired by Russia overnight, the air force said.

But it was unable to shoot down any of the missiles, preliminary statistics from the air force showed.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen slammed "horrible atrocities". French President Emmanuel Macron called for heavier sanctions against Russia.

Kyiv can intercept the vast majority of drones, but still relies on supplies from allies to counter missiles.

Zelensky said the number of air-defence missiles supplied from allies had dropped threefold compared with 2025.

He has repeatedly warned about critical air-defence shortages, as Moscow fired a record number of missiles at Ukraine in July, an AFP analysis of Ukrainian air force data published Saturday showed.

There has been an uptick in civilian deaths in the conflict throughout 2026, the United Nations has reported, as the four-and-a-half-year war grinds on with no sign of a peace deal.

In Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, a key target for the Kremlin, local authorities on Wednesday ordered hundreds of families with children to leave the major Ukrainian-held city of Kramatorsk.

"This is a difficult but necessary decision. The security situation is deteriorating, so it is unacceptable to leave children under the constant threat of Russian attacks," Donetsk region governor Vadym Filashkin said.

- Train station hit -

The Russian attacks overnight mainly targeted warehouses, Kyiv said, with some strikes on infrastructure and a railway station.

Eight people were killed in a strike on a train station on the eastern edge of Kyiv. An AFP journalist saw several bodies covered with white sheets next to the train tracks.

Logistics centres of the general merchandise chain Epicentr were struck, burning one hub completely to the ground and killing an employee, the company said.

Three people working at a postal sorting centre were also killed, and online retailer Rozetka also said it suffered its third attack this week.

Moscow said it hit "transportation, logistics, and distribution centres" in and around Kyiv "involved in the storage, delivering various weapons and military cargo, as well as in the production and distribution of unmanned aerial vehicles".

Ukraine has hit the network of Russian online retailer Wildberries around a dozen times since mid-July, killing at least eight people and knocking out a large chunk of the company's storage capacity.

K.Yamaguchi--JT