At least 37 dead and hundreds evacuated after strike on Kyiv weapons depot

Thirty-seven people have died and almost 400 have been evacuated after a Russian drone strike hit a depot storing weapons for Ukraine’s military near a residential area on the outskirts of Kyiv.

The strike caused shells, mines and drones to detonate late on Friday, triggering a blast that damaged nearby properties including a care home for the elderly and disabled, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

He said the storage site “definitely shouldn’t have been there” and that an investigation had been launched into “terrible negligence on the part of those who stored explosive right next to people”.

The attack is the second to hit a munitions depot near Kyiv in recent months, prompting renewed anger.

Four children are among the 42 people injured in Friday night’s explosion, according to regional head Tymur Tkachenko, with a rescue operation ongoing at the site, in the Bucha district, on Saturday.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement that its forces had targeted “an ammunition depot” in Myla, a village to the west of the Ukrainian capital, holding “components and launch boosters for FP-1/FP-2 long-range unmanned aerial vehicles”.

The explosion damaged about 130 homes in the village.

“Everything is completely damaged,” local resident Liubov Pavlenko, 45, told the BBC while inspecting her home around 200m from the ammunition warehouse.

“There are cracks all around the entire perimeter, and cracks around the windows. Basically, the structural integrity has been compromised,” she added.

“I’m still kind of numb. I don’t know… once I come around a little tomorrow, I’ll probably have an even bigger breakdown.”

Zelensky said the decision to store explosives in the village was “absolutely unacceptable”, adding: “Criminal proceedings have been opened on charges of official negligence.”