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”.
“Everything is completely damaged,” local resident Liubov Pavlenko, 45, told the BBC after inspecting his home.
“There are cracks all around the entire perimeter, and cracks around the windows. Basically, the structural integrity has been compromised.”
Zelensky said the decision to store explosives in the village was “absolutely unacceptable”, adding: “Criminal proceedings have been opened on charges of official negligence.”
The office of Ukraine’s prosecutor general earlier said it was reviewing the “legality of the placement and storage of explosive objects and materials” near residential buildings in Myla.
It said the “actions of officials who made the relevant decisions” would also be investigated.
However, Zelensky earlier stated that “there are regulations in place – ammunition cannot be stored near homes or other residential areas”, adding “appropriate conclusions will certainly be drawn”.
He referenced the strike on an ammunition warehouse in Vyshneve in July, which caused a secondary detonation that killed nine, injured dozens more and damaged more than 280 homes.
Friday night’s explosion has raised fresh questions about why munitions were being stored so close to people’s homes, especially given the regularity of Russian aerial attacks.
“The authorities, the Ministry of Defence – why was this allowed at the depots, in a place where there used to be food?” Borys Daniyluk, 61, said.
“Why were ammunition and weapons stored there, next to a populated village? There are no words, just emotions.”
