Russian drone hits Kyiv school as more than 100 children shelter below

A Russian drone struck a school in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district on Thursday morning while more than 100 students and about 60 staff sheltered underground, Kyiv police and city officials said. No one at the school was reported injured.

The strike damaged the facade of the four-storey school at the third-floor level and set it ablaze, police said. Crews were dispatched at 9:27 a.m. and the fire was out by 10:45 a.m., the State Emergency Service said.

Education Minister Andriy Butenko said all children and staff had been in the shelter when the drone hit. “There are no casualties,” he wrote on Telegram, adding that Ukraine’s educational institutions “have become one of Russia’s constant targets.”

The school was hit during a much larger overnight barrage: Russia launched 107 drones at Ukraine overnight into Oct. 1 — 63 of them jet-powered — and air defences shot down or suppressed 87, the Air Force said. Strikes were recorded at 11 locations. A 50-year-old man was killed in a morning drone attack on the Vesnianske community in the Mykolaiv region, and one person was injured in Odesa. In Kyiv, a fire also broke out in a 16-storey residential building in the Solomianskyi district, while a warehouse blaze in the Obolonskyi district left one man injured.

The attack follows a Sept. 25 drone strike on a lyceum in Ivankiv, Kyiv region, and a Sept. 28 strike on the National Academy of Sciences building in which two deaths were reported.

Sources

• Hromadske: Russia launches 107 drones at Ukraine, strikes Kyiv school with more than 100 students sheltering inside
• Interfax-Ukraine: Butenko on Russian drone hitting Kyiv school: this is cynical terror
• The New Voice of Ukraine: Russian drone ignites fire at Kyiv school
• Kyiv Post: Oct. 1 drone attack report