Russia struck Kyiv with ballistic missiles overnight, killing two people. Hours earlier, a daylong drone barrage killed two more and set the capital's Shayba railway market ablaze.

The missiles hit shortly after 01:00 on September 24. The State Emergency Service put the toll at two dead and eight injured as of 07:13, UNIAN reported. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia fired three waves of ballistic missiles and that Ukraine intercepted 60% of them, Kyiv Post reported.

Jet-powered drones hit warehouses, a petrol station, a railway market and two internet providers' data centres in daylight on September 23. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN Security Council the same day that Moscow would not pause military operations while negotiating, according to Kyiv Post.

Inside Russia the night was quieter. Russia's defence ministry claimed 40 Ukrainian drones downed over seven regions, against 514 the night before, when fires broke out again near refineries at Ufa and Samara.

Kyiv, day and night

The overnight strike damaged a 16-storey apartment building, an eight-storey non-residential building and a private house in the Dniprovskyi district, and the windows and facade of a maternity hospital and a diagnostic centre in Podilskyi, where cars in the car park caught fire. Warehouses were damaged or set alight in the Solomianskyi and Sviatoshynskyi districts, Kyiv Post reported, citing city officials.

Zelenskiy said the targets were "civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, maternity hospital, energy and logistics", Espreso reported. No operator or official has confirmed an energy facility hit in Kyiv that night.

Zelenskiy said Ukraine receives air defence missiles only one or two at a time, that the shortfall is in missiles rather than experience, and asked the US and European allies for more.

Russia launched four Zircon missiles, an unstated number of Iskander-M, S-400 and KN-23 ballistic missiles and 282 attack drones, Ukraine's air force said. It claimed 227 of them destroyed or suppressed by 08:00: all four Zircons, three ballistic missiles, one Banderol or Dan-T and 219 drones. It recorded hits at 13 locations and debris at 10 more, named the Odesa and Kyiv regions as the main targets and said the attack was still going on, Ukrinform reported.

A mass drone wave then moved west. By 07:05 Kyiv time air raid alerts covered almost the whole country except the Lviv, Zakarpattia and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts, and explosions were heard in Lutsk at about 06:45, city council secretary Andrii Razumovskyi said, TSN reported.

The daytime raid of September 23 killed two people and injured at least 43 in Kyiv as of 17:00, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, in comments reported by the Kyiv Independent. The Shayba market, a modernist building next to Central Station, burned. Railway infrastructure near the station was hit and a Ukrzaliznytsia worker was wounded by shrapnel, though the station building itself was not damaged, the railway said.

Two internet providers, Pavutina and UTELS, had their data centres damaged, and about 100,000 households in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast lost connection, the same report said.

The Darnytsia pharmaceutical plant in Kyiv was also struck. Kateryna Zagoriy, a member of the company's Strategic Council, said no employees were hurt, and the company has not disclosed the damage, Kyiv Post reported. The plant was last hit in June.

The petrol station hit in the Holosiivskyi district in the previous night's raid belonged to the state-owned chain Ukrnafta and was almost completely destroyed. Ukrnafta said it was the sixth strike on its civilian infrastructure in recent weeks and that staff had gone to a shelter before the hit. In the Bucha district of Kyiv oblast a production and warehouse building was damaged.

Russia's defence ministry claimed the night's targets were military. It said it hit a Kyiv warehouse holding materials for drone production, a drone component maker named as Tukans LLC at Vyshneve in Kyiv oblast, three logistics centres in Odesa, a drone component warehouse at Mirnoye in Odesa oblast and a dry cargo ship carrying military supplies to Odesa, TASS reported. None of that has been confirmed by any Ukrainian source.

A cargo ship flying the flag of Antigua and Barbuda was hit in the Black Sea that night and its Ukrainian captain was killed, the Ukrainian Sea Ports Authority said. Warehouses in Odesa oblast holding medicines, household goods and food were struck twice, said Oleh Kiper, head of the regional military administration, Ukrinform reported. A jet-powered drone also gutted a warehouse of children's toys near Odesa, Kyiv Post reported, citing the Ukrainian Information Service.

For the night of September 22 to 23 the air force said Russia launched 161 drones, 82 of them jet-powered Shaheds, and three Banderol or Dan-T. It claimed 119 drones and all three Banderols downed or suppressed, with hits at 18 locations, Interfax-Ukraine reported. Ukrenergo reported new attack-related outages that morning in the Kharkiv, Sumy, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv regions, without naming facilities, Ukrinform reported.

Across Ukraine, Russian attacks over the 24 hours to the morning of September 23 killed at least 10 people and injured 53, with four dead in Donetsk oblast, two in Kherson oblast and one each in Kharkiv oblast, Zaporizhzhia oblast and Kyiv, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing regional officials. Kiper also confirmed the death of the cargo ship's captain.

Industry pays twice

Interpipe, a leading maker of steel pipes and railway products, has confirmed that the ballistic strike on Dnipro on the night of September 21 to 22 hit its plant. "Four company employees were killed and seven employees were injured as a result of this barbaric act of terrorism," its press service said, Ukrinform reported. Production has stopped while specialists assess the damage to its main equipment.

The strike on Snow Panda, the tissue and paper maker whose Odesa oblast warehouse complex was destroyed for the second time on September 22, came in an attack that killed two people and injured 13, 11 of them taken to hospital, Kiper said, Kyiv Post reported. Neither account says whether the casualties were at the warehouse.

Berger Cargo, whose 14,000-square-metre Odesa warehouse was hit by two missiles on the same night, now plans to close a damaged warehouse in the Kyiv region as well, Forbes Ukraine reported. Director and co-founder Valerii Baranovskyi put losses from destroyed buildings and equipment at UAH65mn ($1.45mn). The company has lost more than 40,000 of the 83,000 square metres of warehouse space it ran before the attacks and is opening sites in western Ukraine.

Refineries burn again

Fires broke out again near the refineries at Ufa and Samara after a drone raid on the night of September 22 to 23, the Russian service of The Moscow Times reported. At Samara an already damaged reservoir at Rosneft's Kuibyshev refinery was reported burning again. The account rests on residents, the Ukrainian monitoring resource Supernova and NASA fire data. No Russian official and no company has confirmed damage at either site.

The independent Russian outlet Astra, citing residents and local Telegram channels, reported explosions in Ufa that night. Its analyst said smoke rose in the area of the refinery but could also have come from a nearby thermal power plant, the Kyiv Independent reported. Russian officials had not commented.

Russia's defence ministry claimed 514 drones intercepted that night, Interfax reported. For the night of September 23 to 24 it claimed 40 drones downed over seven regions between 20:00 and 08:00 Moscow time, Fontanka reported. Those are the ministry's figures and have not been independently verified.

In the Rostov region, drone debris damaged the administrative buildings of an oil depot in the Kagalnitsky district, with no casualties and no fire, Governor Yuri Slyusar said. In the Krasnodar region, falling debris started a fire at an enterprise that was put out by 08:46, Fontanka reported. Neither the depot nor the enterprise was named. Drone debris also started a forest fire near Gelendzhik on the evening of September 23, the resort's head Alexey Bogodistov said, ptoday.ru reported.

In the occupied territories, Ukraine's General Staff claimed strikes on September 22 and 23 on a depot of Russia's Rubicon drone unit near Volnovakha, a fuel depot at Kundryuche in Luhansk oblast, supply depots near Hirnyk and Velyka Shyshivka and drone command posts in Donetsk oblast, Interfax-Ukraine reported. No damage assessment was given.

Ukraine's General Staff says more than 45% of Russia's designed refining capacity was offline as of September 21. IntelliNews' own refinery ledger puts plants reported halted or cut in September at about 103.5mn tonnes a year, 32% of Russia's nameplate capacity of 327mn tonnes, and at up to 159.2mn tonnes, or 49%, if earlier halts still hold. Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said in early September that about 10% of Russia's refining capacity was under repair.

Weapons and technology

Russia's use of jet-powered drones has risen about eightfold since June, air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said on September 23. Russia launched about 350 in June, 1,500 in July and 2,850 in August, and about 1,900 had been detected in September a week before the month's end, Ukrinform reported. Ihnat put the total since their first use at about 7,700 and said about half of the Shahed-type drones now crossing Ukraine are jet-powered.

"This suggests that the enemy is not stopping, that they are finding opportunities to purchase those jet engines, other components, and assemble them on Russian territory," Ihnat said, Kyiv Post reported. Ukraine has been forced to use more expensive means, including F-16s and air-to-air missiles, to bring them down.

The night of September 23 to 24 brought four Zircon missiles, which the air force said were launched from the Kursk, Rostov and Oryol regions and were all downed. Russia also kept using the Banderol or Dan-T, three on the night of September 22 to 23 and at least one the following night.

Germany and Ukraine are both asking Washington for the right to make Patriot interceptors, the missiles Zelenskiy says arrive one or two at a time. German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on September 23 that he had pressed US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon the previous week to allow PAC-3 interceptors to be built in Europe. "We made it clear that we are offering to help meet the enormous demand for these and other US systems by establishing production lines in Europe and Germany," he said, NV reported, citing the Financial Times. He said PAC-3 was broadly covered by the statement of intent on joint production he signed with Hegseth, that the matter was being examined and that he hoped for a positive outcome.

MBDA already makes the older PAC-2, a Raytheon product, in Germany. The more advanced PAC-3 MSE is made by Lockheed Martin, which has a longstanding cooperation agreement with Rheinmetall, Defense News reported. Whether production moves to Germany depends on the US government and Lockheed Martin. Berlin, which has already agreed to buy Tomahawk cruise missiles, is also pressing for licensed Tomahawk production on German soil, NV reported.

Kyiv's own request is further back. The US has not yet decided whether to grant Ukraine licences to make Patriot missiles and diplomats are still discussing it, State Department spokesman Ian Bateson told DW, Censor.net reported. He said the lack of detail should not be read as a bad sign for Ukraine.

Ukraine is ready to sign a drone defence agreement with the US, possibly on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, CBS News reported, citing three sources. The Pentagon and Ukraine's defence ministry have spent the past year on a framework to test and produce Ukrainian defence technology in the US. According to the report, the US and Gulf states relied at first on Ukrainian interceptor drones and pilots when Iran hit US bases with Shahed drones, and in March then-Army Secretary Dan Driscoll asked Eric Schmidt's Perennial Autonomy for 13,000 Merops interceptors and 10,000 Bumblebee drones, which depend on Ukrainian components. Zelenskiy has said Ukraine aims to produce 10mn drones this year; the US Army acquired about 50,000 in 2025, CBS News said. No signing had been reported at the time of writing.

Arson and sabotage in the EU and the UK

A Russian Mi-8 military helicopter flew about 300 metres into Polish airspace from the Kaliningrad region near Braniewo at 11:08 on September 23 and stayed for 42 seconds, Poland's Operational Command said. Poland scrambled fighter jets and put ground-based air defences on standby. "The nature of the incident indicates that Russia is once again testing the readiness of our air defence," the command said, Kyiv Post reported. Russia has not commented.

German prosecutors are checking whether the drone wreck found near Wunstorf Air Base is linked to the August plot against Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig/Halle airport, Kyiv Post reported, citing joint reporting by Sueddeutsche Zeitung, NDR and WDR. Investigators reportedly see similarities in the construction of the two drones, at least one Wunstorf component was 3D-printed, and the case came up at the weekly security briefing in the Chancellery. The drone may have lain there for up to two years, and no evidence has been published linking it to Russia.

Poland and Romania scrambled jets during the Russian strike on Ukraine on the night of September 22 to 23 and both reported no violation of their airspace, ABC News reported.

No new arson, rail sabotage, cable damage or drone sighting over an EU airport dated September 22 to 24 was found.

Tit for tat

A joint declaration by 51 countries at the UN said Ukraine had agreed to a full and unconditional ceasefire, called on Russia to do the same and demanded the return of deported Ukrainian civilians and children, Kyiv Post reported. Moscow's answer had already been given by Lavrov, and the missiles arrived that night.

Civilian casualties from Russian long-range weapons rose 55% in January to September 2026 from the same period of 2025, Erik Mose, chair of the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, said, NV reported. He put the toll since the full-scale invasion at more than 17,000 civilians killed and nearly 54,000 injured.

Zelenskiy had warned on September 22, after meeting UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham in New York on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, that Ukraine had intelligence Russia was preparing "a new massive attack against Ukraine", the Kyiv Independent reported.

Two days after Zelenskiy offered to stop hitting Russian refineries if Russia stops hitting Ukraine's power grid, neither side has changed its targets. Russia spent the day burning Kyiv's warehouses, petrol stations and a market, and Ukraine's drones were over Samara and Ufa again. Each side is still going after what keeps the other's civilian economy running.

On the ground, Zelenskiy told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published on September 22 that Russia had captured about 890 sq km of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2026 while Ukraine had retaken about 800 sq km on other parts of the front, leaving Moscow a net gain of about 100 sq km, Kyiv Post reported. He put Russia's 2026 losses of troops who will not return to the battlefield at about 270,000, without a breakdown. Neither figure can be independently verified.

The ledgers

The running ledgers are kept as four public spreadsheets at permanent addresses. The first three are non-exhaustive, every row is sourced, and where only one side has spoken the row says so. Defence ministry figures are recorded as claims, and in the sabotage ledger attribution is given exactly as the authorities state it and no further.

Russian strikes on Ukraine's economic infrastructure, 233 rows

Ukrainian strikes on economic infrastructure in Russia and occupied territory, 137 rows

Arson, sabotage and drone incursions in the EU and the UK, 48 rows

Russian oil refineries hit, and how badly, 27 refineries

Russian oil refineries hit by Ukrainian strikes, as of September 24, 2026. Non-exhaustive; strike counts are floors. Damage: 0 claimed, no damage confirmed; 1 fire or minor damage; 2 secondary unit damaged, output reduced; 3 primary distillation unit damaged; 4 refinery halted. Plants reported halted or cut in September 2026 account for about 103.5mn t/yr, about 32% of the 327mn t/yr nameplate total; up to 159.2mn t/yr (49%) if earlier halts still hold. Russian officials put capacity under repair at about 10%. Status mostly from unnamed industry sources cited by Reuters. Full sourced ledger: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AHjZvX9Hf-6jdKxcTE8Dw7f6O2_svY0kX54sqKPyU_s