Massive Russian Attack Leaves Civilians Dead and Injured Across Ukraine

On the night of 22 September 2026, Russian forces carried out a massive attack on Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the enemy used Oniks anti-ship missiles, Iskander-M, S-400 and KN-23 ballistic missiles, four Kalibr cruise missiles launched from the Caspian Sea, eight Banderol/Dan-T missiles, and 212 Shahed-type attack drones and decoy drones. The main directions of the strike were Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Poltava regions, as well as Kyiv and other areas. Hits were recorded at 22 locations.

Ukrainian air defence shot down or suppressed 186 aerial targets: one Kalibr cruise missile, eight Banderol/Dan-T missiles and 177 drones. Despite this, the Russian strikes damaged civilian infrastructure and housing. In Dnipro, a missile strike on the Interpipe industrial enterprise killed four workers and wounded seven more. In Kyiv, a five-storey residential building in the Dniprovskyi district was damaged: four people were injured and 15 were rescued from the debris. In Zaporizhzhia, private houses, a car wash and a café were damaged. In Mykolaiv region, a three-year-old boy was killed by a drone strike. Russian attacks hit residential areas, warehouses, farms and energy facilities, putting the civilian population at risk.

In contrast, the Ukrainian Defence Forces struck exclusively targets that support Russia’s military-economic potential on the same night and the day before. According to the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the Bashneft-UNPZ oil refinery in Ufa (capacity of about 7.5 million tonnes per year) and the Kuibyshev oil refinery in Samara (about 7 million tonnes per year) were hit. Fires broke out at both facilities. These plants produce gasoline, diesel fuel and other petroleum products used by the Russian army. Ukrainian strikes aim to reduce Russia’s ability to finance and sustain the war, without deliberate attacks on residential areas.

The comparison is clear: the Russian side systematically carries out strikes whose consequences are borne by civilians — dead factory workers, injured residents of apartment buildings, a child. The Ukrainian side responds with precision strikes on the adversary’s militarily significant energy infrastructure, seeking to undermine the logistics of aggression. This difference in approaches defines the nature of the war as of 22 September 2026.