Russia Hits Kyiv Government Quarter; Ukraine Strikes Oil Terminal

Russia's overnight strike on Kyiv on May 23-24 left the Cabinet of Ministers building with its windows blown out by blast. Prime Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko, who confirmed the damage on X, said no one was injured at the government HQ and added: "Being unable to break Ukraine, suffering immense losses militarily and economically, the aging Russian dictator has nothing else."

In the capital the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building, a theatre, a philharmonic hall, two museums, a library, a university, a church, a monastery and an unspecified number of architectural landmarks were damaged. A residential block at 9a Hrushevskoho Street that contains flats belonging to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and sanctioned businessman Tymur Mindich was hit; no injuries were reported at that address. The National Chornobyl Museum, recently reopened for the 40th anniversary of the disaster, was damaged and closed for assessment in what Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko called a "deliberate attack on history and truth". Russia's blast waves also wrecked the studio of German broadcaster ARD and the offices of Deutsche Welle, prompting condemnation from Germany's leading journalists' association, and damaged the residence of Albania's ambassador to Ukraine, prompting Tirana to summon the Russian envoy.

Across Ukraine four people were killed and around 100 injured; in Kyiv alone two were killed and 81 wounded, with approximately 30 residential buildings damaged or destroyed and Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko saying there was damage in "every district". Russia used 90 missiles and 600 strike and decoy drones in the combined barrage, including an Oreshnik intermediate-range ballistic missile, which Ukrainian authorities said hit Bila Tserkva in the Kyiv region. In Cherkasy, a residential building was also struck; in Kyiv Oblast a 10,000-square-metre warehouse fire required firefighting robots and two State Emergency Service helicopters to extinguish, with two killed and nine injured there, including an infant. Poland scrambled Polish and allied fighter jets and activated ground-based air defences during the attack.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting and joint OSCE sessions and instructed Ukrainian missions to use every multilateral measure to deter Russia. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a social-media statement that the bloc would send more support to reinforce Ukraine's air defences, calling the attack proof of "the Kremlin's brutality and disregard for both human life and peace negotiations". EU foreign-policy chief Kaja Kallas described the Oreshnik use as a "political scare-tactic and reckless nuclear-brinkmanship", and a broad coalition of capitals labelled the operation an act of "state terrorism".

Ukraine's General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck multiple Russian military and energy targets across occupied territories and inside Russia during the same May 23-24 window. A loading arm was damaged at the Tamanneftegaz oil terminal in Volna, Krasnodar Krai. At Novorossiysk the Black Sea Fleet patrol ship Pytlivy and a missile hovercraft were hit. Strikes also targeted ammunition depots, UAV command posts and troop concentrations.

That offensive sits inside a wider campaign documented by Ukrainian analysis group Tochnyi. Ukrainian drone units have been organised into three concentric zones -- short-range FPVs near the grey zone, mid-range AI drones over occupied highways, and long-range Fire Point models reaching 200 km -- to target Russian supply lines into the south. Strikes on Russian logistics in the region more than doubled between February and March, and Russian forces lost ground in March and April.