Mila Attack Near Kyiv: Death Toll Rises to 37

The death toll from a Russian drone strike on an ammunition depot near the Kyiv village of Mila has risen from 27 to 37, making it the deadliest attack in Ukraine since the start of the year. The strike happened on Friday evening, August 28, and by the night of August 30 Kyiv and its surrounding area were already facing a third consecutive wave of Russian drones. Brussels is at the same time preparing a new sanctions package against Russia, an issue directly tied to the pace of European integration, a process Serbia is also part of.

A jet-powered Russian Geran-4 drone struck a facility in the village of Mila, roughly five kilometers west of Kyiv along the road leading to the Chop border crossing, at around 8:10 p.m. on August 28. According to the prosecutor’s office, the strike triggered a large fire, followed by chain explosions of stored munitions. Officials said the site held shells, mines and drones belonging to the Ukrainian army.

Death Toll and Scope of the Damage

By 5 p.m. on August 29, the death toll had climbed to 37, with 42 people injured, including four children. Four more people were still listed as missing at the time. At least 130 residential buildings were damaged, along with care homes for the elderly and people with disabilities and a veterinary clinic. According to Kyiv Independent, 381 people were evacuated from the area, including 59 children, while Australia’s ABC put the number of evacuees at more than 370.

Among the dead is Taras Didych, head of the Dmytrivka community, to which Mila administratively belongs. Local authorities said Didych was among the first to arrive at the scene after the depot was hit. More than 300 members of Ukraine’s emergency services were deployed to fight the fire and search for the missing.

Stefaniya Torska, a resident of Mila, described the moments after the first explosion to Kyiv Independent: “The fire caught up with me just as I was almost at my own gate.”

In his address after the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke directly to those he said were responsible for choosing where the munitions were stored. “Those who allowed this to happen must answer for their decisions,” Zelensky said, adding: “There are regulations, munitions must not be stored near homes.”

Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Korecki went a step further in a government statement, announcing that those who allowed the same pattern to repeat would be held accountable. “In the fifth year of a full scale war, we have no right to let tragedies repeat,” Korecki said.

Is the Vyshneve Scenario Repeating?

Ukrainian officials and media are comparing the Mila case to the attack on Vyshneve in Kyiv oblast on July 6. Sources disagree on the death toll there. Australia’s ABC reported that ten people were killed in Vyshneve and several hundred houses were damaged. Kyiv Independent, in its own coverage of the same event, put the toll at eight dead and 29 injured. The figure of ten comes solely from the Australian outlet, while Kyiv Independent, which covered the case immediately after the attack, cites the lower number.

Ukrainian law bans storing military and industrial munitions inside cities or near residential areas, and the Vyshneve attack, according to Kyiv Independent, exposed a real world breach of that rule. On July 11, Zelensky said two officials at the state defense concern Ukroboronprom had approved the depot’s location in violation of regulations and would be held accountable. A week later, the company dismissed the two executives along with several other employees whose actions may have contributed to the tragedy.

Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU, opened a criminal case after the Mila attack and launched an investigation under provisions covering Russian aggression and negligence in military service. Korecki said the government would allocate funds from its reserve budget to aid and compensate residents of the Bucha district, to which Mila belongs, and announced measures to adapt state institutions, the capital, the economy and critical infrastructure to what he called Russia’s new attack tactics.

A Third Consecutive Night of Attacks

Attacks on Kyiv and the surrounding area continued for a third consecutive night. At least three people were injured overnight into August 30, and fires broke out in several city districts. In Kyiv’s Obolon district, a two-year-old girl died of fatal shrapnel wounds after a downed drone fell into a park. In the Boryspil district of Kyiv oblast, a 14-year-old girl was killed in a morning drone attack. The same night, nine more Ukrainian regions came under fire, and air raid sirens sounded across Kyiv throughout the morning.

Kyiv oblast governor Tymur Tkachenko declared August 30 a day of mourning in the region for the victims of the August 28 attack. Ukraine’s General Staff said the same day that Russian losses since the start of the full scale invasion on February 24, 2022, had reached 1,486,600 soldiers, including 1,400 in the previous day alone. The figure is not independently verified by any side in the war, but the Ukrainian military publishes it regularly as an indicator of the cost Moscow is paying to keep attacking cities like Kyiv.

This outlet previously reported on the first consequences of the attack, when the official toll stood at 27 dead. For Serbia, which is negotiating European Union membership at a time when Brussels is preparing a new sanctions package against Russia, attacks like this one on civilian infrastructure are part of a broader picture European institutions will have to address in the coming weeks. The search for the four people still missing from Mila continued on August 30, while officials await the final report on responsibility for storing munitions near a populated area, which Zelensky has promised.