Russian ballistic missiles struck Kyiv on the night of October 26 to 27, 2026, hitting a university campus, a hospital, residential buildings and a major river crossing, Ukrainian officials said. One person was killed in the capital and at least 14 people were injured, according to later updates from Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, after an earlier count put the number of injured at 10. The changing figures reflect reports updated through the morning as emergency services reached more sites.
The strikes hit crowded civilian areas, not a battlefield, and they cut across a university, a hospital and a river crossing in a single night.
Key Takeaways
- One person was killed in Kyiv and at least 14 were injured, most of them students from a university dormitory, according to the mayor’s later updates.
- Ballistic missiles damaged the State University of Trade and Economics campus and dormitory, a hospital in the Dniprovskyi district, and the Southern Bridge over the Dnipro.
- Traffic on the Southern Bridge was halted and metro service on part of the green line was suspended while experts assessed the damage.
What Happened Overnight
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian ballistic missiles struck the area of a university campus, Kyoto Park, a zone near a metro station and nearby residential buildings. He said there were no military facilities near the sites that were hit, and warned that further attacks remained a threat as drones continued to target Kyiv and other cities.
Ukraine’s Air Force reported detecting ballistic missiles launched from Russia’s Bryansk region. Reports of the scale of the wider assault differed by source and by the time they were measured: Zelenskyy was reported as saying Russia attacked Ukraine with 16 missiles and more than 280 drones, while other monitoring reports put the number of drones neutralised at roughly 255. Officials said air defences shot down two ballistic missiles, but several missiles still caused damage in the capital.
Emergency services worked through the night at multiple impact sites. Officials said people could have been trapped under rubble in the early hours, and rescue operations continued into the morning.
University Campus and Hospital Hit
The university affected was the State University of Trade and Economics, in the area around the Lisova metro station on Kyiv’s left bank. Its buildings and dormitory were damaged, and more than 200 people, including students, postgraduate students and faculty members, lived in the dormitory, according to reports from the university.
Two second-year students, a man and a woman, were seriously injured while outside during the attack, and the male student was expected to undergo a second neurosurgical operation. The university rector, Anatolii Mazaraki, denied reports of student deaths on university grounds, saying no one was killed there and that information circulating about deaths on university grounds was false.
Ukraine’s Health Ministry reported that the attack damaged a hospital in Kyiv’s Dniprovskyi district, shattering windows in intensive care, rehabilitation, dialysis and palliative care units. No patients or hospital staff were injured, the ministry said.
An ambulance crew responding to an emergency call also came under fire. A paramedic and an emergency medical technician sustained minor injuries and their vehicle was damaged, but both continued working, according to the Health Ministry. The attack also damaged an office of electricity distributor DTEK Kyiv Electric Networks, which said crews were assessing the damage and carrying out repairs.
The strikes hit crowded civilian areas, not a battlefield, and they cut across a university, a hospital and a river crossing in a single night.
Southern Bridge and Metro Disruption
The missiles also damaged the Southern Bridge, also known as Pivdennyi, one of the main crossings of the Dnipro in the capital, and the metro infrastructure running across it. City authorities halted traffic on the bridge in both directions while experts assessed the damage, and the bridge remained closed.
Reports said the bridge had also been struck earlier in October. On the metro network, service on the red line was later restored at all stations, while on the green line trains temporarily did not run between the Osokorky and Chervonyi Khutir stations because of damage to infrastructure at the Southern Bridge.
- One person killed in Kyiv; at least 14 injured, nine of them hospitalised in earlier counts.
- State University of Trade and Economics campus and dormitory damaged; two students seriously injured.
- Hospital in Dniprovskyi district damaged; no patients or staff injured.
- Southern Bridge closed to traffic; green line metro service partly suspended.
- Kharkiv also struck, with local officials reporting two deaths and four injuries.
Kharkiv Also Struck
Russian strikes also hit Kharkiv, where local officials reported two deaths, four injuries and damage to apartment blocks after multiple missile impacts. A separate Ukrainian drone strike was also reported on an ammunition depot in occupied Luhansk Oblast, according to monitoring channels.
The overnight assault came in a wider pattern of large October barrages. A United Nations-backed commission of inquiry had separately accused Russia of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity through deliberate attacks on Ukraine’s civilian energy infrastructure, a finding reported on October 26. The strikes also came alongside a separate US-brokered truce under which an aid mission was preparing to reach stranded residents elsewhere in Ukraine, underlining how fighting and humanitarian efforts were unfolding at the same time.
Air Defence Pressure
Zelenskyy urged partners to deliver interceptor systems faster and to implement agreements on strengthening air defences promptly, arguing that delays leave cities more vulnerable to ballistic missiles and high-speed drones. He also said Ukraine needs systems capable of destroying Russian ballistic missiles before they are launched.
Russian officials said the Southern Bridge crossing supports troop transfers and military logistics for Ukrainian forces in Donbas, a claim that could not be independently verified. Ukrainian officials maintained that the sites hit in Kyiv were civilian areas.
What to Watch Next
What to watch next is the damage assessment on the Southern Bridge and whether traffic and full metro service return, the condition of the seriously injured students, and whether further missile and drone attacks follow in the coming nights. Officials have said rescue and repair work is continuing, that experts are assessing the bridge, and that air defence deliveries remain the central question for protecting Kyiv and other cities.