Kyiv region warehouse blast kills 37 as officials probe ammunition storage near homes

A Russian drone strike set off a massive explosion at a warehouse in Ukraine’s Kyiv region late Friday, killing 37 people and forcing nearly 400 residents to evacuate, in one of the deadliest single incidents to hit the area in recent months. The blast has also triggered a formal investigation into why explosive materials were being stored so close to residential neighborhoods.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said the explosion damaged nearby homes and a care facility in the surrounding area, and confirmed that prosecutors had opened an inquiry into the legality of storing explosive objects at the site. Writing on social media, Zelensky said ammunition must never be kept near houses or other residential buildings and stated that appropriate conclusions would follow once the investigation concludes.

Regional head Tymur Tkachenko said four children were among the 42 people injured in the blast, and that rescue teams remained at the site in the Bucha district through Saturday, working to clear debris and confirm the full scope of casualties. He said authorities deployed more than 300 emergency service personnel to the village of Myla, where a care home housing elderly residents and people with disabilities was among the properties damaged in the explosion. Tkachenko said officials have opened criminal proceedings on charges of official negligence tied to the incident.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office said it is examining the legality of placing and storing explosive objects and materials near residential buildings, and confirmed that investigators will also scrutinize the actions of the officials who made the relevant storage decisions.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said in a statement that its forces had targeted an ammunition depot in Myla, which it said stored components and launch boosters for FP 1 and FP 2 long range unmanned aerial vehicles used by Ukrainian forces.

The warehouse strike was not the only fatal incident to hit the Kyiv area over the weekend. Tkachenko said a 14 year old died in a separate attack in the Boryspil district, while Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said a two year old died after a Russian drone crashed in the capital’s Obolonskyi district. Klitschko added that five people, including an 18 year old girl, sustained injuries in fresh strikes on Kyiv on Saturday morning. Local officials reported five deaths across the country over the previous 24 hours. Zelensky also reported additional overnight strikes in the Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions, while the Ukrainian military said its air defenses shot down 233 Russian drones during the barrage, underscoring the scale of the overnight assault.

Russia experienced its own losses during the same period. Local officials there said two people were killed and 25 injured in strikes on the Belgorod and Rostov regions over the past day. Separately, the Moscow appointed governor of the occupied Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia said four people were injured after a Ukrainian strike hit a shopping center, adding another data point to the steady exchange of cross border strikes both militaries have carried out in recent weeks.

Russian online retailer Ozon reported that one of its logistics centers was hit in an overnight Ukrainian drone strike, and said it had also suspended operations and evacuated staff from a second facility due to the danger posed in the surrounding area. The company’s facilities in Krasnodar, Dagestan, Stavropol and Adygea had already come under attack earlier in the week, resulting in injuries and extensive damage to its supply network.

The pattern of strikes reflects an intensifying economic dimension to the war, with Ukraine increasingly targeting Russian commercial infrastructure alongside traditional military sites. Ukraine has spent weeks striking facilities belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, arguing the company represents a legitimate target because it allegedly supplies components used by the Russian military, an accusation Moscow has repeatedly denied. Ozon, as the country’s second largest online retailer, has increasingly found itself targeted in a similar fashion, suggesting Ukrainian forces are widening their focus to disrupt sectors of the Russian economy that ordinary citizens rely on daily.

The scale of Friday’s warehouse blast, and the resulting scrutiny over ammunition storage practices near civilian areas, adds a new layer of controversy to a war that has already drawn criticism over the handling of military infrastructure inside populated zones. Investigations of this kind have occurred periodically throughout the conflict, though the death toll from this latest incident ranks among the highest attributed to a single strike in the Kyiv region since the full scale invasion began in 2022.

As both militaries continue trading strikes deep into each other’s territory, with drone interception numbers climbing on both sides, there remains no indication of imminent de escalation. Ukrainian officials have signaled that further findings from the Myla investigation could prompt broader reviews of how and where military supplies are stored nationwide, particularly in districts like Bucha that sit close to Kyiv and carry dense residential populations.