Ukraine is grappling with the aftermath of a Russian strike on an ammunition storage facility in the Kyiv area. According to CBC News, 37 people were killed and more than 40 others were injured in the attack, which took place on Friday. Euronews Deutsch reported that the death toll from the strike on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital had since risen to 38, as rescue and recovery work continued at the site.
There has been some divergence over exactly what was hit. According to Euronews Deutsch, Moscow said that Russian drones had struck a cement factory in Kyiv where explosives had been stored. CBC News, for its part, described the target as an ammunition storage facility belonging to Ukraine's Defence Forces, and reported that questions are now being asked about why such a site was located so close to a residential area.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the strike directly. According to CBC News, he said the first strike had hit an ammunition storage facility, one that in his words definitely should not have been there, belonging to the Defence Forces. He described the scale of the incident as significant and said that an investigation was now underway to establish what had happened.
According to CBC News, senior officials have pledged severe punishment for anyone found guilty of negligence in connection with the storage site. The focus on accountability has come alongside wider questions about how a facility holding ammunition or explosives came to be positioned near where people live, in an area that is now counting its dead and its wounded.
The incident was not without precedent. According to CBC News, just last month a strike on another ammunition depot killed nine people and damaged nearly 300 homes. That earlier attack has been recalled by observers as officials now examine how such storage sites are located and secured across the country while the war continues.
The strike came against a backdrop of renewed escalation in the air war. According to Euronews Deutsch, Russia's Defence Ministry announced large scale attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure in retaliation for Kyiv's attacks on Russian territory. The broadcaster recalled that Moscow's earlier bombardment of Ukrainian power plants had largely destroyed the grid, leaving millions of people without electricity and heating in freezing temperatures.
Ukraine, for its part, has been carrying out its own long range strikes. Euronews Deutsch reported that Ukrainian forces attacked an oil refinery in northwestern Russia with drones, triggering a fire according to local authorities. The broadcaster noted that both Russia and Ukraine have recently intensified their air strikes, with civilians repeatedly among those who have been killed in the attacks.