A Russian jet-powered drone struck the building of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Kyiv on Monday, setting the structure on fire and prompting an emergency rescue operation, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Zelensky said on X that crews were working to put out the fire and search for anyone trapped inside. “All services are deployed,” he wrote, adding that a pharmaceutical company and gas stations in Kyiv were also hit the same day, along with a business center in Dnipro and civilian facilities, businesses and communications infrastructure in other cities and regions.
Sadly, people have been killed… My condolences to their families and loved ones. Russia will definitely face a response to this. And every one of Ukraine’s partners must see from this terror, from these strikes, that supporting Ukraine means truly supporting people’s lives – supporting the principle that terror must never be normalized, anywhere. Russia must be held accountable for all of this and face real consequences.
An account from the scene described people escaping through windows as the building burned. The National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine describes its work as spanning mathematics, computer science, mechanics and mechanical engineering, physics and astronomy, Earth sciences, materials science, energy and power technologies, nuclear physics and energy, chemistry, biochemistry, physiology and molecular biology, general biology, economics, history, philosophy and law, and literature, linguistic and art studies. There is no indication the institution conducts military research.
The strike came amid a broader pattern in which neither side in the war has made major territorial gains recently, but both continue to trade drone and missile strikes that extend well beyond front-line military positions. Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian diesel fuel refineries and storage sites, aiming at the logistics that keep any modern military moving. Russia, for its part, has repeatedly struck civilian infrastructure inside Ukraine.
This is a developing story.
Add comment