Escalating Air Strikes: Ukraine Faces Increasing Deadly Attacks from Russia

Sun Oct 19 2025 07:04:23 GMT+0300 (Eastern European Summer Time)

Recent Russian missile strikes have intensified against Ukraine, targeting the capital Kyiv and the eastern Donbas region. The Ukrainian government condemns these attacks and calls for stronger international support.

Ukraine has reported major escalations in Russian air strikes, particularly targeting Kyiv and the Donbas region. A recent strike resulted in a direct hit on a government building in Kyiv, while another attack killed 24 civilians in a pension queue. Ukrainian President Zelensky is urging allies to impose tougher sanctions on Russia as attacks become more lethal and frequent.

Ukraine has shown reporters fragments of the missile it says hit a key government building in Kyiv this weekend, identifying it as a Russian Iskander cruise missile. Officials here now believe the building was struck deliberately in the early hours of Sunday morning.

Vladimir Putin's response to Donald Trump's peace efforts has been a clear escalation in Russian attacks. But they don't only target the Ukrainian capital. In the eastern Donbas region, more than 20 civilians were killed by a Russian glide bomb on Tuesday as they queued to collect their pensions.

Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the strike on the village of Yarova as savage and called once again on Ukraine's allies to increase the pressure on Moscow through sanctions.

His office said some US and European weapons components are still reaching Russia, including for the Iskander missile. Moscow has already substituted the rest with its own production.

Strong actions are needed to make Russia stop bringing death, Ukraine's president wrote.

Our team was filming on Sunday morning during the air raid on central Kyiv and captured the moment the cabinet of ministers was hit. The images appear to show a direct strike: a missile suddenly arcs downwards, right before the explosion. There is no indication of it being intercepted by air defences.

The missile - packed with more than 100kg (220lb) of explosives - did not detonate, so the damage is limited to three floors. But it's still significant.

In Kyiv, the increase in early morning attacks is obvious: they've grown more frequent - but most importantly they're bigger in scale. Russia now launches hundreds of drones at a time, deliberately draining Ukraine's resources. That's why Zelensky is constantly calling for more missiles.

Closer to the front line, the tactics are different: deadly glide bombs arrive almost without warning. In Yarova, the bomb hit a pension delivery van, killing 24 elderly civilians.

Ukraine continues to seek international condemnation of Russia's actions while pressing for more robust sanctions to cut off the resources fueling the ongoing conflict.