Kyiv Sixth Day of Attacks: 12 Dead, Six Railway Workers
A ballistic missile hit a depot of Ukrainian Railways on Kyiv's sixth day of Russian strikes, with the death toll, by different counts, ranging between 12 and 19 across the capital and outskirts.
Russian forces turned the night before the start of the new school year in Ukraine into a sixth consecutive day of massive air attacks on Kyiv, the longest such stretch since the invasion began more than four and a half years ago. A ballistic missile struck a depot of Ukrainian Railways and killed six of the company’s employees, and the overall death toll from the attack stands, according to different sources, between 12 and 19. For Serbia, the story is not just distant news from eastern Europe: each new wave of strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure adds pressure to the energy market the region depends on, and while Kyiv waits for progress toward European Union membership, Belgrade is waiting in the same line for its own European path, making the pace of both candidates’ talks in Brussels hard not to compare.
The attack began at 6 p.m. on Monday, August 31, and continued until the morning of Tuesday, September 1, according to a statement from Ukraine’s air force. Russia used 218 drones and decoys, about a third of them the jet powered version, which is harder to intercept than the propeller type, along with ballistic, cruise and anti-radar missiles, glide bombs and artillery barrages. The strikes hit nine regions, centered on Kyiv and the Odesa region in the south, while the Zhytomyr region in the north was also targeted.
How the Death Toll Numbers Differ
In Kyiv itself, the Darnytsia, Holosiivskyi and Solomianskyi districts were hit, with residential buildings and civilian infrastructure damaged. President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “Twelve people have died, including a citizen of India.” According to the Associated Press, citing Ukraine’s own count, eight people were killed in the city itself and three in the surrounding area, while more than ten were wounded, including three children.
The independent Ukrainian outlet Meduza, adding up separate statements from individual emergency services, arrived at a different and considerably higher total: eight dead in Kyiv’s districts, seven at the railway depot, counting six employees and one additional victim, four in the Kyiv region, and one person injured in the Odesa region. The gap between the two counts remains unexplained, and on its own shows how chaotic the first casualty figures look in the hours after such an attack, before the relevant services reconcile their numbers.
The ballistic missile that hit the depot and other facilities of Ukrainian Railways killed six of the company’s employees, according to figures cited by the Associated Press. It was a direct strike on transport infrastructure that, even in the middle of the war, still carries civilians and goods across the country, including freight bound for European ports and onward to markets in the region. About 350 firefighters and rescuers took part in putting out the fires and in the rescue effort, President Zelensky said.
Damage was also recorded outside the capital. In Boryspil, a five story building, two private houses, a shop and an industrial facility were damaged, and 48 people were evacuated. Near the border with Romania, the Orlivka ferry crossing was damaged, while in the Odesa region a textile workshop burned, and in the Zhytomyr region an industrial facility and a warehouse were hit. Russia’s defense ministry, for its part, said it had targeted military plants, energy facilities and ports, in other words military targets, not civilian infrastructure as Kyiv claims.
Why Does the Sixth Day Matter?
The run of six consecutive days of heavy air attacks on Kyiv is, according to Ukrainian officials, the longest since Russia launched its full scale invasion more than four and a half years ago. srpske.rs earlier reported on the fifth consecutive day of attacks and on the rising death toll in the village of Mila near Kyiv, where the strikes continued into the night before September 1. Ukrainian officials say Moscow’s goal is to wear down civilians through daily strikes and disrupt everyday life, just as several million Ukrainian schoolchildren were starting a new school year.
What It Means for Serbia and the Region
For Belgrade, which has not introduced a sanctions regime against Russia, every new escalation on the Ukrainian front further complicates an already delicate balance between energy dependence on Russian sources and the European path that requires aligning foreign policy with Brussels. Strikes on Ukraine’s rail and port infrastructure, including the damaged Orlivka crossing on the border with Romania, directly affect the transit routes that carry part of the region’s goods to Ukraine and beyond, so disruptions on that network carry a cost outside Ukraine itself.
The date when the wave of attacks on Kyiv will stop, like the outcome of the talks on European Union enlargement under way in Brussels at the same time, remains unknown for now.
