“Vile and Brutal”: Zelenskyy Condemns Russia’s 12-Hour Barrage Across Ukraine

Ukraine endured one of the heaviest overnight attacks of the war as Russia launched a sustained 12-hour barrage of missiles and drones targeting Kyiv and multiple regions on Sunday, September 28, 2025.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the strikes as “vile and brutal,” saying the assault deliberately targeted ordinary cities and civilian infrastructure. Preliminary tallies from Ukrainian authorities reported at least four fatalities, including a child, and dozens of injuries, with widespread damage to residential buildings and medical facilities in the capital and beyond.

Air defenses intercepted the majority of incoming threats, but debris and direct hits still caused fires, structural damage, and power disruptions. Kyiv’s Cardiology Institute and sites in the regions of Zaporizhzhia, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, and Odesa were among the locations reported hit or affected by falling debris.

Ukrainian officials said emergency services and police were deployed across more than ten regions for rescue, firefighting, and damage assessment, while appeals intensified for additional Western air-defense systems and tighter curbs on Russian energy revenues that finance the war.

Neighboring NATO states heightened vigilance during the onslaught, with reports of jets scrambled to secure allied airspace as the cross-border security environment remained tense.

Sources: The Guardian, Financial Times