Russian Drone Strikes Damage Kyiv Schools and Kindergartens; Officials Report Casualties

Russian drone strikes on Kyiv damaged schools and kindergartens and caused civilian casualties early Sunday, according to Ukrainian officials and local media reports, with debris and damage reported across several districts of the capital.

President Volodymyr Zelensky, writing on his official Telegram channel on Sept. 27, said that in Kyiv alone Russian jet-powered strike drones hit or damaged two kindergartens, two schools, a residential building, a vehicle service station, several warehouse buildings and communications facilities. He also said there were deaths and dozens of people injured. Zelensky used the attacks as evidence, he said, that Moscow is not genuinely moving toward de-escalation.

An initial toll reported separately by ArmyInform, a Ukrainian military news outlet, put the casualties from the Sept. 27 attacks in Kyiv and the surrounding Kyiv region at at least one person killed and eight wounded. That figure was described as an early count, and casualty totals in the aftermath of strikes often change as emergency crews continue their work.

Local and national Ukrainian reporting independently supported damage to education sites in the capital. Ukrinform reported that drone debris fell on the grounds of a preschool in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district. TSN reported damage to a kindergarten in the Obolon area. Other local reporting said debris fell and damage was recorded in several districts, including Shevchenkivskyi, Sviatoshynskyi and Obolonskyi. Under international humanitarian law, schools and kindergartens are civilian objects unless they are being used for military purposes.

Some of Zelensky’s broader claims had not been independently verified at the time of reporting. In his Telegram post, he said Russia had used 277 strike drones since the previous day, including 155 jet-powered drones, but those figures were not corroborated in the Ukrainian military operational statements reviewed. Zelensky also said a building used as the residence of the Saudi ambassador was among the damaged sites, a claim that open-source reporting had not confirmed by Sunday.

Zelensky said the choice of targets would be called terrorism anywhere in the world and argued that the strikes showed Russia was not serious about reducing the violence. He urged allies to increase pressure on Moscow through new sanctions, pointing in particular to the newly passed Lindsey Graham sanctions law in the United States and saying additional sanctions packages were being prepared for October to target financial chains and supply routes used in Russian weapons production.

Ukraine and independent analysts have said Russia has increasingly used jet-powered Shahed- or Geran-type drones in 2026, which are faster and harder to intercept than earlier propeller-driven versions. That helps explain why Ukrainian officials have highlighted this element of the latest attack as they seek more international pressure after strikes that, by multiple reports, hit civilian sites including educational facilities.