Russia's Round-the-Clock Bombardment Kills at Least Seven, Strikes Kyiv's Science Academy

Russia unleashed a sustained bombardment of Ukraine, striking Kyiv's National Academy of Sciences and residential areas, killing at least one person and injuring 56 others nationwide, Ukrainian officials said Sept. 28-30.¹²³

Scale of the strike

According to Ukraine's Air Force, Russian forces launched 152 attack drones overnight—82 of them jet-powered Shahed variants—alongside one Onyx and one Zircon anti-ship missile, and two Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles fired from the Kursk region. Drones were launched from four locations inside Russia, including Oryol, Millerovo and Primorsko-Akhtarsk, as well as from occupied Crimea.¹²⁵

The Air Force said air defence units intercepted all three missiles and 106 of the 152 drones, for a total of 109 aerial targets destroyed or jammed. The Air Force stated: "As of 08:00, air defence forces had destroyed or jammed 109 aerial assets: 1 Zircon/Oniks anti-ship missile 2 Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles 106 Shahed, Gerbera and other types of drones." Hits were recorded at 24 locations and debris from intercepted targets fell at 16 locations. At one point, the Air Force said the attack was still under way, noting: "The attack is ongoing, with several enemy UAVs still in Ukrainian airspace."²⁵

Casualties across the country

Ukrainian officials reported at least one person killed and 56 injured nationwide over the 24-hour period. Two men, ages 28 and 44, sustained injuries in Kharkiv Oblast. In Zaporizhzhia and the surrounding area, 34 people were wounded, including 33 hurt in a Sept. 28 strike on an industrial facility. Two people were injured in Kherson Oblast, six in an attack on a high-rise residential building in Odesa, and five in drone attacks on Sumy Oblast.¹⁵

NBC News cited Donetsk Oblast's regional governor, Vadym Filashkin, as saying the strikes there left one person dead and six others hurt.⁵

France 24 reported that at least three people, including a child, died in the Russian strikes on Kyiv, with several others wounded, a figure not corroborated by the other sources in the dossier.³

¹

Impact on Kyiv

Kyiv came under sustained bombardment, with over a dozen explosions recorded shortly before 3 a.m. local time as ballistic missiles struck the capital, causing power disruptions in the Pechersk district. Ukraine's Air Force had earlier warned of incoming ballistic missiles. One person was wounded in the city.¹

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said emergency crews were responding to a fire, stating: "emergency crews are responding to a fire in a residential area in the Sviatoshynskyi district." The Kyiv Independent reported that Russia has intensified attacks on the capital since August, shifting tactics toward hours-long drone assaults.¹

Effects beyond Ukraine's borders

The attack also had repercussions in neighbouring Poland, where two airports, Lublin and Rzeszow, were briefly shut down because of military aviation activity, France 24 reported. Flight operations at both airports later resumed, according to The Straits Times.³⁴

Daytime strike on Kyiv's National Academy of Sciences

According to Ukrainian and Western sources, a Russian jet-propelled drone hit a facility of Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences in Kyiv's Shevchenkivskyi district in broad daylight, leaving at least one dead and three hurt; among the injured was the academy's first vice-president, Volodymyr Horbulin, who suffered a minor wound, while one of his aides was killed. The building caught fire, and a nearby private medical center was also hit, with local authorities reporting at least two dead and others injured there.¹³⁴⁶

Academy president Anatoliy Zagorodny said the institution had no military connection, calling the strike 'an attack on science' and 'terrorism,' and said he feared colleagues remained trapped inside. Sources noted the Academy's longstanding ties to Ukraine's defence sector and said Russia has shifted tactics toward more daytime attacks using faster, harder-to-intercept jet-powered drones. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged Western countries to intensify pressure on Russia, while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned Ukraine would 'pay a price' for recent strikes inside Russian territory and indicated chances of quick progress on a peace settlement were bleak.³⁸²

Battlefield claims and long-range strikes

Ukraine's Third Army Corps said it recaptured about 20 more square miles from Russian forces, bringing total gains since Operation Vivaldi began to 68 square miles, according to a single source in the dossier.¹

¹