Russian Drones Hit Ukraine's Academy of Sciences in Kyiv, Killing at Least Two

According to Ukrainian and international reports, Russian drones hit Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences building in downtown Kyiv on Monday, triggering a fire that left at least two dead, as part of a larger nationwide Russian assault that killed and injured dozens of others.⁶³²¹

Direct hit on the Academy

A Russian jet-powered drone directly struck the Academy's historic building in Kyiv's Shevchenkivsky district while many staff members were inside, according to Interfax-Ukraine and SOFX. The strike sparked a fire on the upper floors, and rescue teams worked to suppress the blaze and search for people trapped in the rubble.⁵⁷

Casualty figures differed between outlets. Al Jazeera, Inkl and SOFX each put the Academy death toll at two or more, noting that crews pulled one victim's remains from the debris as evening fell. Interfax-Ukraine, citing local officials, reported one person killed and six injured, including three minors, and said contact had been lost with several people inside the building; it also reported that two academicians had died in the strike.²¹⁵⁷

Volodymyr Gorbulin, who once headed Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council and had a longstanding connection to the Academy, was present during the strike and suffered minor injuries. His assistant, a woman, was killed nearby, according to multiple reports.³²⁵⁷

Academy president Anatoliy Zagorodny said, "We are not connected with the military. This is an attack on science. It is terrorism." A Ukrainian education official, Andrii Butenko, said the destruction of educational and scientific infrastructure was intended to intimidate children, parents, educators and scientists and disrupt normal institutional operations.⁵

Wider barrage on Kyiv and beyond

The strike on the Academy came amid a broader wave of attacks. A Russian drone hit the nearby private medical centre Dobrobut in Kyiv. Elsewhere, a business centre in Dnipro was struck, killing three to four people and wounding at least 12 to 19, according to differing counts. A logistics office in Synelnykove was hit, killing one person, while an infrastructure attack in Zaporizhzhia wounded around 30 to 32 civilians. Ukraine's two largest cell providers, Kyiv Star and Vodafone Ukraine, were also hit, a day earlier on Sunday.²¹³⁵

Al Jazeera reporter Jonah Hull, in Kyiv, described "a rolling series of strikes that have been ongoing for six days now," adding that "data centres increasingly being hit, as well as digital and communications infrastructure" had brought "Kyiv firmly into the eye of this war."²

Russia has increasingly deployed newer jet-powered drones that fly faster and are harder to intercept. Of 120 drones fired at Ukraine on Monday, 90 were jet-propelled, with an interception rate of 57 percent, according to Al Jazeera. Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defences shot down 254 Ukrainian drones overnight. Zelenskyy said that in response, Ukrainian forces had targeted oil infrastructure in Russia's Krasnodar region along with a pair of defense manufacturing sites.²³⁵

Reactions and wider context

Germany's ambassador to Ukraine, Boris Ruge, posted that Russia continues its assault on non-military sites throughout the country. The Academy of Sciences was struck this Monday in the heart of Kyiv," he added, "and yet we press on with our mission, with Germany's steadfast backing for Ukraine unwavering." Slovakia's Academy of Sciences presidium denounced the assault as a breach of international law and civilized norms, pointing out that the building sits in central Kyiv, a location typically shielded from Russian strikes.⁷⁴

Zelensky renewed his appeal to Western allies for more military support, including Patriot air-defence interceptors, saying, "This is how evil encroaches, and how a threat to life in one part of the world spreads to other parts." Pope Leo urged Russia and Ukraine to "sit down, engage in dialogue." Separately, the EU imposed sanctions on ten individuals and 17 entities over the deportation of Ukrainian children to Russia, and Zelensky said Russia had deployed 8,000 North Korean troops with another 10,000 preparing to follow.³¹

Against this backdrop, Ukrainian weapons producers said the country could earn significant export revenue if allowed to sell more freely abroad, warning that stringent export licence rules were eroding their competitive edge, according to France 24.⁶