37 People Were Killed by Russian Drones in Myla, near Kyiv; Fatalities also Mount Elsewhere

Russian drone attack on August 28-29 killed 37 people in the village of Myla in the Bucha district, just west of Kyiv along the Kyiv-Chop highway. Taras Didych, head of the local Dmytrivka community, was also killed while acting as a first responder. At least 42 others were injured.

The high fatality level was due to a Russian strike on a storage facility, triggering secondary explosions and a massive fire. Over 50 residential buildings and a local care facility for the elderly and disabled were heavily damaged. More than 380 residents have been evacuated.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi confirmed that the site stored defense materials and ammunition near residential areas, in violation of safety protocols. A criminal investigation into official negligence has been opened by the Prosecutor General's Office and SBU.

While the direct cause of the casualties and destruction was a Russian drone strike, the massive loss of life and secondary explosions occurred because defense materials and ammunition were stored at a local commercial facility/enterprise right near homes and civilian infrastructure.

Zelenskyy explicitly cited clear safety regulations forbidding ammunition storage near residential areas, stating that criminal proceedings for official negligence have been opened and that those responsible for approving or allowing the storage there must be held accountable.

Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi condemned the decision as “criminal negligence,” noting that safety protocols were violated despite previous warning incidents (such as a similar warehouse blast in Vyshneve).

Both the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Prosecutor General's Office have launched criminal investigations to examine who authorized the storage, whether permits existed, and why military/explosive supplies were placed dangerously close to civilian homes and a care facility.

As for the local community head, Taras Didych, reports clarify that he was not responsible for the supply storage itself; rather, he was killed after rushing to the scene as a first responder immediately following the initial strike to assist with civilian evacuations.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense publicly claimed responsibility for the strike, explicitly stating that their target was a warehouse facility in Myla storing long-range drone components and ammunition. Given the heavy secondary detonations and fireballs that followed the initial drone impact, Russian reconnaissance likely detected movement or logistics activity at the commercial site, making it a prime target for their long-range strike.

The fact that the enemy targeted it directly—coupled with the devastating secondary explosions—is precisely why both President Zelenskyy and Prime Minister Koretskyi called the proximity to homes criminal negligence. It created a high-value target for Russian intelligence right in the middle of a civilian area.

It cannot be discounted that Russian drone pilots were aided in targeting this specific ammo warehouse by a local spotter, as has been the tragic case on numerous previous occasions.

Russian forces on Friday resumed their drone barrage of Ukraine’s Kyiv region, hitting more than a dozen apartment buildings and storage depots in a second straight day of aerial attacks, officials said.

Prolonged air raids in Kyiv on Thursday essentially locked down the Ukrainian capital for 15 hours, the Foreign Ministry said, choking the economy and severely disrupting civilian life more than 4½ years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor. Even longer alerts are a daily reality in regions closer to the front line, the ministry said.

Russian drone and missile attacks are also taking aim at the power grid in what Ukrainian officials say is an annual campaign to “weaponize winter” – in other words, to deprive the people of heat during Ukraine’s brutal winter. In Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on the Black Sea, where glide bombs a day earlier forced a combined heat and power plant to shut down, officials predicted a winter of extended outages and told people to move elsewhere if they could.

Russian attacks aim to paralyze Kyiv, officials say. Russian strikes in the Kyiv region damaged 14 warehouses, 16 private houses, three apartment buildings and 16 vehicles, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said Friday.

A second drone hit one location after emergency crews were deployed, the State Emergency Service said, in what is termed by the military as a “double tap” that targets first responders.

Earlier, an aerial assault on Kyiv and the surrounding oblast over the last two nights (August 26–28) was particularly severe, marked by prolonged alerts, novel tactics, and heavy targeting of civilian logistics. In the course of the two days, Russia launched hundreds of attack UAVs—primarily Shahed-type drones (with roughly half being faster jet-powered variants), alongside Gerbera drones and Parodiya decoys. Ukrainian Air Defense neutralized at least 137 out of 164 drones in the latest overnight wave alone.  Air raid alerts in Kyiv were active for over 14–15 hours, effectively grinding daily life and business in the capital to a halt. Instead of single midnight waves, the attack extended into daylight hours throughout Thursday, August 27.

Strikes heavily hit distribution centers and civilian warehousing infrastructure across Kyiv Oblast. Affected facilities include major retail, food, and publishing hubs—such as distribution centers for Fora, Silpo, Comfy, Epicentr, Aurora, Roshen, and major bookstore suppliers like Readeat. At least 14 large storage complexes suffered severe damage.

Double-Tap Attacks: Emergency responders faced severe danger from deliberate repeat strikes. The State Emergency Service (SES) reported that rescuers had to pause firefighting operations 13 separate times due to targeted secondary drone strikes at emergency sites.

Casualties have been reported across several districts in Kyiv Oblast (including Bucha, Fastiv, and Boryspil), with at least one civilian killed and multiple injured. Scores of private homes and apartment buildings were also damaged. Smoke from burning warehouses degraded air quality across parts of the city. Unfortunately, there were civilian casualties.  According to regional officials, at least one civilian was killed and two others were injured in Kyiv Oblast during the overnight strikes.

The primary physical toll on the capital's region has involved widespread damage to civilian housing and logistics infrastructure, with debris and direct hits damaging: 16 private residential houses, three multi-story apartment buildings, and 14 major commercial distribution facilities (including food, retail, and publishing storage)  First responders faced extreme risk, with firefighting operations interrupted 13 separate times due to targeted secondary drone strikes ("double-tap" attacks) at the hit sites. Nationwide over the same 24-hour window, local authorities reported at least 10 civilians killed and over 40 wounded across affected regions like Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, and Sumy.