On the night of September 24, 2026, Russian strikes on Ukraine resulted in at least eight deaths and more than twenty injuries. Not only Kyiv and major cities were hit. In the Kharkiv region, a missile hit a farm where people were working at the time; in the Odesa region, a hospital, an educational institution, residential buildings, and a shopping center were damaged.
In Kyiv, after a combined attack, two deaths and eight injuries were confirmed. A maternity hospital was damaged — no patients or staff were injured — nine private houses, two post offices, more than 30 cars, and office buildings were damaged. The consequences were recorded in four districts of the capital.
In the village of Stara Hnylytsia, Kharkiv region, a Russian strike hit a farm. According to updated data, six workers — two men and four women were killed, and another 12 people were injured. All the victims worked at the same enterprise. Later, local authorities clarified that the missile hit a vegetable storage where people were present at the time.
In the Odesa region, two more people were injured. A hospital, a gymnasium, residential buildings, warehouse facilities, and a shopping center, which had already been attacked by Russia before, were hit. The roof of the city hospital department and food warehouses were damaged, windows in the school and residential buildings were broken, and cars were damaged.
This is how the beginning of September 24 looks even before discussing the number of drones launched and types of missiles. Maternity hospital, farm, hospital, school, residential buildings, cars. Ukrainian authorities call such strikes a continuation of attacks on civilian infrastructure; the circumstances of each hit are separately documented by the police and the prosecutor’s office.
Author — Elena Gunko, NANews. Author’s page.
282 drones plus ballistic and ‘Zircons’
Now the scale of the entire attack.
It began in the evening of September 23, around 18:00, and continued into the morning of September 24. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia used 282 drones of various types, along with them — ‘Zircon’ anti-ship missiles, ‘Iskander-M’/KN-23 ballistic missiles, S-400 missiles in strike application, and ‘Banderol’ and ‘Dany-T’ type munitions.
The main directions of the strike were named as Kyiv and Odesa regions.
By 08:00, the Ukrainian side reported 227 destroyed or suppressed air targets: 219 UAVs, four ‘Zircons’, three ballistic missiles, and one ‘Banderol’/’Dany-T’ munition. Hits were recorded in 13 locations, and debris from intercepted targets fell in ten other locations. The attack was not over at that time — some drones were still in the air.
And then the map began to spread westward.
After the night ballistic strikes, groups of drones moved through the central regions of Ukraine towards Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, Ternopil, and Volyn regions. Explosions were reported in Khmelnytskyi, in Vinnytsia, near Kremenets, in Rivne, and Lutsk. In Khmelnytskyi, a drone hit a multi-story building, damaging apartments, balconies, and cars.
So the morning did not mark the end of the night attack. The air raid alert simply shifted further westward.
Kyiv: missiles arrived during Zelensky’s meeting with American congressmen
There is a coincidence in this night that seems almost too obvious, although nothing needs to be inferred here.
When the ballistic strike on Kyiv began, Volodymyr Zelensky was in New York meeting with members of the US House of Representatives. And he was discussing sanction pressure on Russia and Ukraine’s protection against ballistic missiles with them.
This is not a journalistic reconstruction. The time of the strike was directly reported by the Office of the President of Ukraine.
The conversation involved American congressmen Brian Fitzpatrick, Mike Quigley, Marcy Kaptur, Jared Golden, Joe Wilson, and Gregory Meeks. After the attack began, Zelensky again spoke to the Americans about the need for additional missile interceptors.
Does the coincidence of timing prove that Russia specifically scheduled the launches for this meeting? No. There is no such data, and attributing such a plan to Moscow would already be an assumption.
But the sequence itself is quite harsh. In New York, they discuss where Ukraine can get additional means against ballistics. At the same time, ballistic missiles fly to Kyiv.
And this is already the second heavy strike on the capital in a row
Kyiv did not have time to recover from the previous attack.
September 23, a day before the current strike, two people also died in the capital. By evening, the number of injured had risen to 43 people, more than twenty were in hospitals.
Now — another two dead and eight injured.
In the Podil district, a maternity hospital was damaged. Cars caught fire in the parking lot near the medical facility, where one of the deceased was found. The diagnostic center located nearby was also damaged.
In the Dniprovskyi district, a private house was destroyed, neighboring buildings were damaged. In the Solomianskyi district, warehouses were partially destroyed, and the fire spread to the basement premises. In the Darnytskyi district, missile debris fell on the roadway.
And already against this background, the second half of the current story begins — diplomatic.
Because in New York, they are now trying to talk about stopping the strikes
September 22, Zelensky met with US President Donald Trump during the UN General Assembly. They discussed possible steps for de-escalation and how Ukraine will get through the upcoming winter.
One of the options is quite narrow. Not trying to solve the entire war with one agreement, but first stopping at least part of the strikes.
Primarily on energy.
The scheme looks roughly like this: Ukraine stops strikes on agreed Russian oil refining and energy facilities if Russia, on its part, stops strikes on Ukrainian power plants, networks, and other energy infrastructure.
NANews detailed this option back on September 11 in the article ‘Trump’s Plan B: Energy, Black Sea and a Chance for a Winter Break’. At that time, it looked more like American intelligence of possibilities. Now the conversation has become more specific.
And here it is easy to make a mistake in words. Energy truce is not peace and not even necessarily a ceasefire across the entire front. Soldiers do not disappear, territorial disputes remain, regular combat operations may continue.
Just one piece of the war is being temporarily removed.
The next piece is the Black Sea and grain
In New York, Zelensky also met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The conversation again returned to the sea: shipping safety, Ukrainian ports, grain export.
This direction for Israel is no longer theoretical.
Ukrainian ships leave the Odesa region into the Black Sea, pass the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, and the Dardanelles — and end up in the Mediterranean Sea. In September, Ukrainian wheat reappeared among shipments on the Israeli route.
We detailed this route in the article ‘Ukrainian Wheat is Going to Israel Again: Export Accelerated Almost Twice Under Russian Port Blockade’. The specific volume of September shipments to Israel was not disclosed, but the Israeli direction is present in the documents.
Therefore, damaged warehouses and infrastructure in the Odesa region are not just a local Ukrainian story.
For Israel, the distance from Odesa to the Mediterranean Sea ends quite quickly: the Bosphorus — and then already the very maritime market on which Israel heavily depends.
Russia, meanwhile, does not close the negotiation channel
This is where it gets strange.
On the night of September 24, missiles and hundreds of drones fly. People die on a farm, a maternity hospital is damaged, objects in the Odesa region are burning.
And almost simultaneously, Russian representative Kirill Dmitriev heads to New York for negotiations with Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, and other representatives of the Trump administration.
The meetings are supposed to concern Ukraine, energy, Russian-American relations, and further diplomacy.
So Moscow does not break the American channel. On the contrary, it continues to work even against the backdrop of another major air attack.
For readers of NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency, there is a familiar thing from the Middle East: negotiations and hostilities can quite coexist. The mere fact of a meeting of intermediaries does not yet mean that the parties have already agreed to reduce the intensity of the war.
And the names of the intermediaries are well known to Israel. Steve Witkoff worked for Trump on the Middle East direction, Jared Kushner was one of the architects of Trump’s first-term diplomacy and the Abraham Accords. Now the same American link is involved in the Russian-Ukrainian direction.
Israel joined the call for a ceasefire a few hours before the attack
There is another direct Israeli episode.
September 23, before the night attack, a group of states at the UN made a joint statement in support of Ukraine and called on Russia to agree to a complete, immediate, and unconditional ceasefire.
Israel participated in this initiative.
NANews already separately analyzed the document in the article ‘More than 51 Countries at the UN, Including Israel, Called on Russia to Agree to a Ceasefire’. There is also an important legal reservation: the collective statement of states is a political position, not a UN Security Council resolution and not a legally enforced ceasefire.
The document concerns not only the cessation of hostilities itself. It includes the return of deported Ukrainians and children, prisoner exchange, and Black Sea security.
The last point for Israel is again quite practical.
If Ukrainian ports operate worse, if ships are forced to change routes, if insurance becomes more expensive — the consequences gradually reach the Eastern Mediterranean.
What weapons might be unclear to the Israeli reader
For a person in Israel, the word Shahed no longer requires a long explanation. But 282 Russian UAVs this night — these are not 282 identical Iranian drones.
In one attack, Russian-made strike Shaheds, ‘Gerberas’, decoys, devices of other types, and new jet versions can be used. Some are launched specifically to overload air defense: radars, mobile groups, and anti-aircraft systems must simultaneously track many targets, not all of which carry the same combat charge.
Reuters separately noted that the appearance of faster jet drones complicates the work of Ukrainian air defense. They are faster than the usual propeller-driven Shaheds, which means there is less time for detection and interception.
With ballistics, there is another problem.
‘Iskander-M’ and North Korean KN-23 fly along a ballistic trajectory at very high speed. That is why Ukraine constantly requests additional Patriot systems and interceptor missiles for them.
The S-400 is more familiar to the Israeli reader as a Russian air defense system. But missiles of this family are also used by Russia against ground targets.
And ‘Zircon’ was primarily created as high-speed anti-ship weaponry. Russia has already used such missiles for strikes on Ukrainian territory.
Hence the complexity of the combined attack: slow drones, fast jet UAVs, decoys, ballistics, and missiles of other types appear almost in one time window. For the air defense system, these are completely different tasks.
And yet negotiations continue
After everything that happened this night, it is easy to write that diplomacy is over.
But that is not true yet.
The American negotiation channel is active. Dmitriev is going to talk with Witkoff and Kushner. Ukraine confirms its readiness to discuss energy restrictions and the sea. The US is trying to understand if the conversation can at least be translated into a technical format.
Even a future trilateral meeting of Zelensky, Trump, and Putin was discussed. Among the possible venues, the December G20 summit in Miami was mentioned, but as of September 24, such a meeting has not been scheduled. There is an idea — there is no agreement on the meeting yet.
And therefore, the night of September 24 does not prove that negotiations are disrupted.
It shows something else.
There remains a huge distance between the very fact of negotiations and the real reduction of the war.
What remains after this night
Eight dead in just three episodes that started this morning. Two — in Kyiv. Six — on the farm in Stara Hnylytsia. More than twenty injured. Damaged maternity hospital, nine private houses, post offices, hospital, school, shopping center, warehouses.
And simultaneously — New York, the UN, negotiators, talks about an energy truce and a safe Black Sea.
Perhaps this is now the most accurate picture of the process.
Diplomacy exists. But so far, it has not stopped anything.
Its results will need to be checked not by the number of meetings and statements, but by much simpler things: will missiles stop flying at energy, will strikes on ports cease, will civilian ships be able to pass through the Black Sea, and will at least one regime appear that both sides will truly observe.
As of the morning of September 24, 2026, such a regime does not exist.