Hits to university and medical centers
A Russian ballistic missile strike killed one person and injured 10 others in Kyiv late on October 26. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the fatality occurred near a supermarket and noted that nine of the 10 injured people are university students currently in the hospital. The casualties include a paramedic, a medical technician, and a 20-year-old university student. In the Dniprovskyi district, two medical facilities sustained damage. One of the two sites came under fire, where blast waves shattered windows in the intensive care unit, and windows also broke at the other site. President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post to X that Russian ballistic missiles struck the grounds of a university in Kyiv and the area around it, effectively the campus, Kyoto Park, the area near a metro station, and residential buildings. Kyiv Independent journalists on the ground first reported that loud explosions rocked the city in the Podilskyi and Obolon districts at around 9:45 p.m. local time, just minutes after the Ukrainian Air Force warned that ballistic missiles and other missiles were headed towards Kyiv. I find the repeated targeting of these civilian sites unacceptable.
Recent strikes in the capital
The attack also damaged a school building in the Desnyanskyi district and caught a team of paramedics under fire. Kyiv City Military Administration officials reported that a school building in the Desnyanskyi district sustained damage, and explosions also occurred near a metro station in that same district. Zelensky renewed his calls for allies to provide air defense and said that artificial delays in providing air defense to Ukraine help terror. He added that strikes can come at any moment and target cities and villages directly. I find his assessment of the situation entirely correct. This attack follows a Russian ballistic missile strike on the night of October 13-14 that killed five people and injured 25. Another strike on October 22 killed at least one person and injured 24 others during an overnight attack in which cluster munitions also targeted the city. I see a clear, grim pattern in these frequent attacks.
| Date | Deaths | Injuries | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| October 13-14 | 5 | 25 | Ballistic missiles |
| October 22 | 1 | 24 | Cluster munitions |
| October 26 | 1 | 10 | University campus hit |
Russia regularly targets civilian infrastructure in cities across Ukraine as it continues to wage its war.
