{"id":17222,"date":"2025-11-15T20:40:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-16T04:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=17222"},"modified":"2025-11-18T20:29:14","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T04:29:14","slug":"russia-pummels-kyiv-and-tries-to-plunge-ukraine-into-darkness-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=17222","title":{"rendered":"“Russia Pummels Kyiv and Tries to Plunge Ukraine Into Darkness”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ukraine downed some Russian drones and missiles in Kyiv on Friday, but debris damaged several buildings, officials said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Constant M\u00e9heut<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nov. 14, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Flames engulfed the top floors of residential buildings. Red tracer bullets streaked through the night sky. Fireballs blazed in neighborhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kyiv endured another brutal night under attack on Friday as Russian missiles and drones struck it, killing six people and injuring dozens more, according to the local authorities. Firefighters and emergency workers were called to multiple districts of the city to deal with the consequences of the assault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The targets of the overnight attack were not immediately clear. Most recently, Russian aerial assaults have regularly hit the country\u2019s power grid<\/a>, an effort to plunge Ukrainians into cold and darkness as winter looms. The Ukrainian Air Force said<\/a> Russia had launched 19 missiles and 430 drones across the country, most of which were shot down. These figures could not be independently verified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis was a deliberately calculated attack aimed at causing maximum harm to people and civilian infrastructure,\u201d President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote<\/a> on social media. \u201cIn Kyiv alone, dozens of apartment buildings have been damaged.\u201d He added that missile debris had hit the Azerbaijani Embassy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"People
Firefighters in Kyiv, Ukraine, at an apartment building hit during an overnight Russian strike of drones and missiles on Friday.Credit…Valentyn Ogirenko\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The attack also targeted Kharkiv in the northeast, limiting electricity and disrupting water supplies. But the main focus appeared to be Kyiv, Ukraine\u2019s capital, where air-raid sirens first wailed shortly before midnight to signal the start of the attack and sounded again at 5 a.m. to mark its end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between those alerts, residents heard a grimly familiar soundtrack \u2014 the buzz of attack drones over neighborhoods, the staccato of heavy machine guns trying to shoot them down and the thud of air-defense missiles trying to intercept Russian ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many residents of Kyiv sought shelter in subway stations, spending long hours underground. After nearly four years of war, Ukrainians have learned the routine and often bring inflatable mattresses, folding chairs or even tents to make nights on the cold subway-station tiles more comfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"People
Waiting out the strikes on Friday in a Kyiv metro station that was being used as a bomb shelter.Credit…Dan Bashakov\/Associated Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By morning, the full scale of the damage in Kyiv had become clear. Falling missile or drone debris had gutted or blackened many building facades, torn through walls and sparked fires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Residential buildings were hit \u201cin practically every district,\u201d said<\/a>Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the city\u2019s military administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"People
Rescuers at a building in Kyiv that was hit.Credit…Valentyn Ogirenko\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shortly before 8 a.m., Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, said<\/a>preliminary information indicated that three people had died in the attack. But he warned that the toll might change as rescuers combed through the damaged buildings, looking for bodies under the rubble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five hours later, Mr. Klitschko announced that the toll had doubled. All six victims were killed in a district northeast of the capital, along the route Russian drones often take as they approach Kyiv.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The toll was relatively limited compared with those of other major air assaults on the capital. It is largely a matter of luck \u2014 whether missiles tear through buildings or not. This time, they did not.<\/span> <\/span>In late August, they did<\/a>: A Russian missile struck a five-story apartment building, killing 22 residents, including four children.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"People
Kyiv residents taking pictures of Russian drone remains.Credit…Vladyslav Musiienko\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Zelensky said, \u201cUkraine is responding to these strikes with long-range strength,\u201d a reference to Kyiv\u2019s campaign of long-range strikes on Russia\u2019s oil infrastructure<\/a>, aimed at cutting off the energy revenues that fuel the Kremlin\u2019s war effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Russian authorities in the southwestern region of Krasnodar reported<\/a> an attack on the Russian Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, where drones damaged an oil depot, a cargo container terminal and coastal facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Repairing a broken window with tape.Credit…Alina Smutko\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/a>
A damaged apartment building that Russia struck in Kyiv on Friday.CreditCredit…Associated Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Still, Russia retains the upper hand in the aerial war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month alone, it launched more than 5,500 attack drones and decoys at Ukraine, forcing the country to defend its skies nearly every night. It also fired nearly 270 missiles, more than in any month since early 2024, according to a New York Times analysis of data published by the Ukrainian Air Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"People
Police officers carried out the body of a victim found under debris at an apartment building.Credit…Valentyn Ogirenko\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mr. Zelensky has long urged Ukraine\u2019s Western allies to supply more air defenses. He said he wanted to order Patriot air-defense systems from the United States, each of which costs at least $1 billion to build.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kyiv, already strapped by nearly four years of war, has no choice but to press its European partners to foot the bill. Mr. Zelensky is scheduled to visit Greece and France on Sunday and Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"People
Workers cleaning up debris.Credit…Thomas Peter\/Reuters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Ukrainian officials framed the attack on Friday as further evidence that Russia was determined to continue the fighting and that Kyiv urgently needed more support, including long-range weapons capable of hitting deep inside Russia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis brutal Russian attack demonstrates the urgent need for new contributions to Ukraine\u2019s defense and new steps to increase pressure on Russia,\u201d Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine\u2019s foreign minister, wrote<\/a> on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Credit…Evgeniy Maloletka\/Associated Press<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Constant M\u00e9heut<\/a> reports on the war in Ukraine, including battlefield developments, attacks on civilian centers and how the war is affecting its people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ukraine downed some Russian drones and missiles in Kyiv on Friday, but debris damaged several buildings, officials said. By Constant M\u00e9heut Reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine Nov. 14, 2025 Flames engulfed the top floors of residential buildings. Red tracer bullets streaked through the night sky. Fireballs blazed in neighborhoods. Kyiv endured another brutal night under attack on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17222"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17222"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17345,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17222\/revisions\/17345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}