Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region killed 17 people and injured 44 others, smashing business premises and a train station, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The targets hit included a brewing company, a warehouse for construction material, and a mail sorting office that had nothing to do with the war, Mr Zelenskyy said.
But the Russian Defence Ministry said the businesses masked ties to the military.
The Tuesday night attack, lasting about two hours, was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian ballistic missile strikes that have become near-routine this summer.
Moscow is exploiting Ukraine's critical shortage of interceptor missiles for the US-made Patriot systems, the sole air defence weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles.
Mr Zelenskyy has pleaded with other countries to send more of the ammunition made scarcer by the Iran war.
Supplies of air defense missiles to Ukraine during the first half of this year tumbled to one-third of the 2025 level, Mr Zelenskyy said.
"Ballistic interceptors are what could have saved the lives of those killed today," Mr Zelenskyy said on social media.
"It is very important for our partners to understand that delays in supplying them, or a reluctance to hand over anti-ballistic systems, lead directly to such horrific casualties and destruction."
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has again implored for more ballistic interceptors. (Reuters: Stringer)
Russia says it struck war-related targets in Kyiv region
Serhii Beskrestnov, an adviser to Mr Zelenskyy, said the war of attrition is entering a new phase.
"The enemy is attacking everything indiscriminately — retail warehouses, food storage facilities, logistics hubs, enterprises, building materials warehouses," he said on Facebook.
Mykhailo Hukov, a 40-year-old Kyiv warehouse worker, said an air raid warning that included a ballistic missile threat sounded just after Tuesday midnight, prompting an immediate evacuation order.
"So everyone started running," he told The Associated Press.
"I turned everyone around so they wouldn't go back inside for their backpacks."
Minutes later, in an underground shelter, they heard "some very loud, very loud explosions."
Ukraine's largest private postal operator, Nova Poshta, said a Russian cluster munition destroyed one of its sorting centres in Kyiv.
The Russian Defence Ministry said the centre was "storing and distributing dual-use goods, including those used in the production of long-and-medium-range uncrewed aerial vehicles, as well as robotic systems and electronic warfare systems."
It claimed that two other logistics centres in the Kyiv region stored drones or components for drones.
Separately, the Russian ministry said its forces hit three bulk carriers on the Black Sea south of Odesa that it claimed were transporting weapons and military equipment for the Ukrainian armed forces.
Ukrainian officials did not comment on that claim.
Ukraine's largest private postal operator, Nova Poshta had a sorting centre destroyed. (AP: Efrem Lukatsky)
Truck drivers make a narrow escape
Ivan Braga, a 46-year-old truck driver from Moldova who was in Kyiv during the attack, said he and a colleague ran from their vehicle when it was struck by shrapnel in a blast wave.
"We didn't even have time to grab our documents or anything else," Mr Braga told AP.
"I couldn't believe it. I'd already been in Kyiv and had heard explosions before, but nothing like today."
One of the companies that came under heavy fire was Epicentr, one of Ukraine's largest retail and construction chains.
It said in a statement on Facebook that "in minutes, Russian missiles destroyed what the company had built over decades".
One employee was killed and three others were injured.
According to the Russian Defence Ministry, the Epicentr logistics centre handled order processing, sorting, storing, and delivery of dual-use goods and components for drone production.
Five were killed and 19 injured in the central Moscow event on August 2. (AP: Pavel Bednyakov)
Russian drone supplier injured in car explosion
Meanwhile in Russia, the director of a factory supplying drones to the Russian military was badly injured when his car exploded, according to reports on Wednesday, local time.
The state TASS and RIA Novosti agencies said Vladimir Tkachuk was hospitalised in grave condition following the explosion late Tuesday in Bolshoy Istok just outside Yekaterinburg, 1,400 kilometres east of Moscow.
It did not immediately give details of the explosion or say who could be responsible.
There was no immediate comment from the authorities.
Mr Tkachuk headed the Uraldronzavod factory that manufactures Upyr (Russian for Ghoul) drones.
Mr Tkachuk, a small-scale entrepreneur, set up a team of engineers that developed the Upyr and organised its production near Yekaterinburg, Russia's fourth-largest city and a key industrial hub in the Ural Mountains
The Upyr, a cheap and simple first-person view drone, was hailed by troops for the protection it offers against jamming.
Russian authorities have blamed Kyiv for a series of bombings and other attacks against senior military officials after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
The explosion followed Saturday's deadly bombing at a Moscow restaurant, which the Russian Embassy in Rome blamed on Ukraine, describing it as an attempt to intimidate the Italian community in Russia.
It said in a statement on Monday, lcoal time, that the attack on the Balzi Rossi restaurant killed five and injured 19.
AP
