Russia Renews Mass Strikes on Ukraine, Hits 29 Sites

Russia fired ballistic and cruise missiles, drones and anti-ship missiles at Kyiv and five other Ukrainian regions overnight on Tuesday, September 8, breaking the lull in strikes that had held during the weekend visit of US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Moscow and Kyiv. For Belgrade this is not just another night of war on the continent’s east: the outcome of the talks Witkoff and Kushner held directly affects how long Europe’s security crisis, one that Serbian foreign policy adjusts to on a daily basis, will remain unresolved.

Explosions rang out across Kyiv for nearly five hours. Ukraine’s Air Force said that by 8:30 a.m., while the attack was still under way, it had shot down or suppressed two ballistic missiles, 31 cruise missiles and 142 drones. Strikes were recorded at 29 locations, while debris from downed missiles and drones fell at nine other sites across the country.

Conflicting Death Tolls From Kyiv

Sources differ on the exact death toll in the capital. The Ukrainian outlet Kyiv Independent reports three people killed in Kyiv and 25 injured. The Associated Press, in a report carried by the US outlet WSLS, cites the same death toll of three but puts the injured at 16. The American network NBC News, citing local authorities, reports two dead and at least 10 injured. Discrepancies like these usually come down to when each toll was taken, since casualty figures keep changing throughout the day.

The nationwide toll is not clear-cut either. Kyiv Independent initially reported five people killed and 70 injured across Ukraine, before revising the injured figure to 63 later the same day in an updated version of the same story.

The Holosiivskyi, Solomianskyi, Darnytskyi and Podilskyi districts were hit. Around noon, debris struck a four-story office building in the Solomianskyi district, and people were evacuated from its upper floors. Ukraine’s Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi said more than 50 locations were damaged across the capital in total, including apartment buildings, schools, stores, gas stations and a flour mill.

“More than 50 locations were damaged in Kyiv,” Vyhivskyi said in a statement on the aftermath of the attack.

Strikes Hit Six Regions

The strikes were felt beyond the capital as well. Two people were killed and 10 injured in the Donetsk region, its governor Vadym Filashkin said. In Kramatorsk itself, two people died and six were injured; three people were hurt in Sloviansk and one in Raihorodok. One person was killed and 13 injured in the Kherson region, governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported, while 12 people were injured in the Zaporizhzhia region, according to governor Ivan Fedorov.

Three people were injured in the Kharkiv region, including a 17-year-old, governor Oleh Syniehubov said. In Odesa, three men aged 58, 54 and 48 were hurt at a market on the city’s outskirts, governor Oleh Kiper reported. A 65-year-old man was injured in the Sumy region, and a 40-year-old woman in a drone strike on the village of Pryluky in the Chernihiv region. Russian drones also struck a passenger train running between Kyiv and Sumy twice, but it had been stopped in time because of an air raid alert, and all 90 passengers and crew members were evacuated unharmed.

Zelensky, Sybiha and Peskov React

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as calculated to cause the greatest possible damage.

“This was a heavy strike, one the Russians deliberately calculated to cause as much damage to life as possible: ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and anti-ship missiles, jet-powered Shaheds,” Zelensky wrote in a post on Telegram.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha linked the attack to the recent talks involving Witkoff and Kushner.

“His ballistic missiles speak louder than his words about diplomacy,” Sybiha said, referring to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

From Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia believes it is close to a military victory on the front.

“We are confident that victory is very close,” Peskov said.

The Russian Defense Ministry, for its part, claims the strikes targeted military industry: drone and cruise missile storage sites, logistics hubs for military cargo, and port infrastructure in Chornomorsk in the Odesa region, which Moscow says is used to unload military cargo. Russian officials in the areas under their control, meanwhile, reported three people killed and 13 injured by Ukrainian fire that same day.

End of a Brief Lull

The attack broke the lull that had held over the weekend, while Witkoff and Kushner were in Moscow and Kyiv as part of a US effort to open a path toward ending the war. srpske.rs already covered that visit and Zelensky’s warning that he expects the war to continue through the winter. The exchange of accusations between Kyiv and Moscow, with strikes continuing on both sides of the front just a day after the American envoys left the region, shows how narrow a window diplomacy currently has.