The night of May 24, 2026, became one of the hardest for Kyiv since the beginning of the full-scale war. Russia launched a massive combined strike on Ukraine — with missiles of various types, ballistics, and hundreds of drones. The main target was once again the capital.
The strikes did not hit military parades or ‘decision-making centers’ from Russian propaganda, but ordinary city life: a dormitory, schools, a business center, a shopping center, a supermarket, residential buildings, water supply facilities, a market. This is what real Russian ‘strength’ looks like today — missiles against apartments, entrances, children’s rooms, and people who were just trying to survive another night.
According to preliminary data, at least 83 people were injured since the beginning of the day. There are fatalities. The scale of the attack was enormous: about 90 missiles of various types, including 36 ballistic ones, and approximately 600 drones. Some targets were shot down, but not all ballistics can be stopped with the available air defense systems.
Kyiv became the main target of the night attack.
The largest number of hits and destructions occurred in Kyiv. Strikes and falling debris were recorded in different areas of the city. Residential high-rises, private houses, public buildings, commercial facilities, and transport infrastructure were damaged.
The strike on the everyday urban environment looks particularly painful. In one area, a dormitory was damaged. In another — a school. Somewhere, floors of a residential building caught fire. Elsewhere, windows and doors were blown out, facades were destroyed, and apartments were buried under debris.
Such a strike cannot be explained by military logic. This is not a strategy for victory. It is an attempt to sow fear, anger, fatigue, and a sense of helplessness.
But in the fifth year of the great war, Putin still hasn’t understood the main thing: strikes on Ukrainian cities do not make people ‘surrender.’ They make society tougher, more collected, and angrier. Every destroyed house becomes another proof that concessions to terror do not stop terror.
What was under attack
According to available data, residential buildings, a business center, a shopping center, a supermarket, schools, a market, infrastructure, and water supply facilities were affected in Kyiv and the region. In several places, rescuers, medics, utility services, police, and emergency crews were working.
It is these people who first bring the city back to life after a night of terror.
They clear the debris, evacuate residents, extinguish fires, help the wounded, cover broken windows, restore movement, check shelters and communications. In such moments, it becomes clear what the state really relies on: not on loud statements, but on people who go to work immediately after the explosions.
Russia once again showed weakness, not strength.
Moscow tried to present this attack as a demonstration of capabilities. In reality, it once again showed political and military weakness. When a state cannot achieve results on the battlefield, it starts to fight with high-rises, markets, and schools.
This is the essence of the current Russian tactic. Not to defeat the army — but to punish civilians. Not to change the course of the war — but to make the world get used to night attacks. Not to offer peace — but to raise the stakes of blood again.
Ukraine was not only hit in Kyiv. Cherkasy, Kharkiv, Kirovohrad, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, and Zhytomyr regions were also under attack. There were separate reports of an attack on Bila Tserkva using a missile associated with the Russian ‘Hazel’.
The name of this weapon is used by Moscow as an element of psychological pressure. But behind the beautiful propaganda packaging remains the same reality: missiles fly over cities, not ‘mythical threats’.
For the Israeli audience, this picture is too familiar. Israelis know what it means to live under the threat of rockets, to count minutes to shelter, to check news about hits, and to wait for messages from loved ones. That is why the attack on Kyiv should be perceived not as a distant European news, but as part of the overall picture of the war against civilian life.
In this context, NAnews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency considers such events not only as a Ukrainian tragedy but also as a signal for Israel: a world that gets used to strikes on cities becomes more dangerous for everyone.
Why the silence of international structures seems especially loud
After such nights, it becomes especially noticeable how devalued many international institutions have become. Formally, they exist. They have buildings, budgets, positions, statements, meetings, and the usual diplomatic language.
But when hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles, including ballistics, fly over a European capital, too little real action is heard from them again.
One can talk endlessly about ‘deep concern’, ‘calls for restraint’, and ‘the need for dialogue’. But if the aggressor strikes schools, homes, and life-support facilities again, and the consequences for him remain limited, it means only one thing: the deterrence mechanism does not work as it should.
What should change after this attack
The main conclusion is simple: support for Ukraine needs to be strengthened, not softened. After such strikes, talks about ‘pauses’, ‘fatigue’, and ‘compromises’ look not like diplomacy, but like an invitation to the next attack.
Ukraine needs additional air defense systems, more means to protect against ballistics, sustainable financing of the defense industry, long-range capabilities, and political decisions that will show Moscow the cost of continuing the war.
It’s not just about weapons. It’s about sanctions, using frozen Russian assets, restrictions against Russian military and those who service the military machine. The world has levers of influence. The only question is whether it is ready to use them not after another tragedy, but before the next one.
Israeli perspective
For Israel, this attack is also important because it shows: the Russian war has long gone beyond the Ukrainian front. It is a war against the very idea that civilian cities should be protected from rocket terror.
If such an approach remains without harsh consequences, it will be copied by other regimes and forces. Including those who already threaten Israel, Ukraine, and Jewish communities in different countries.
Iran, which is an enemy of both Ukraine and Israel, has long been embedded in this war through drone technologies and support for the Russian military machine. Therefore, every attack on Kyiv is not only a Russian story. It is part of a broader axis of violence, where different enemies of the free world learn from each other.
Ukraine is now defending not only its cities. It is defending the principle that a missile on a residential building cannot be an ‘argument’ in politics.
And so, after this night, the question should not be: ‘How much more can Ukraine endure?’
The right question is different: how much longer will the world allow Moscow to test the resilience of other people’s cities, other people’s families, and other people’s patience?