Sirens wailed over the capital for more than an hour after midnight as Russian missiles and drones struck warehouses, a railway station and residential areas, according to Ukrainian authorities.
Zelenskyy said 17 people were killed and 44 injured across Kyiv and the wider region, a toll he said would likely climb further. "I offer my condolences to their families and loved ones", he wrote on social media.
Ukraine's State Emergency Service reported a slightly lower count of 14 dead and 27 injured, with rescue crews still working Wednesday morning at three sites ringing the capital. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko gave a separate figure for the city itself: one death and 24 injuries, four of them critical, including an ambulance driver.
Klitschko said rescuers pulled two survivors from a collapsed warehouse near the city center. "There may still be people under the rubble", he said, adding that search operations were ongoing.
Zelenskyy said the strikes deliberately targeted warehouses, infrastructure and a train station, as well as a brewery and construction depots. He tied the casualties directly to gaps in Ukraine's missile shield.
"The lives of those who died today could have been saved by interceptor missiles for ballistic rockets", he said, urging allies unwilling to send more interceptors to instead tighten sanctions on Russia's missile industry.
Ukraine's air force said Russia fired 24 Iskander-M and four Zircon missiles alongside 115 drones overnight; air defenses shot down 98 of the drones but none of the missiles. Kyiv has long pressed Washington for more PAC-3 interceptors, and sources say talks continue on letting Ukraine build Patriots domestically, despite doubts President Donald Trump has voiced about such a deal.
Fires tore through storage sites on the capital's outskirts and an ammonia leak forced an emergency response, officials said, though early reports of a burning 20-storey apartment tower proved false. Debris from a downed missile struck near a residential building.
Moscow's defense ministry said it had targeted logistics and supply hubs around Kyiv used for military purposes. Russia has escalated strikes on the capital in recent weeks; Ukraine, in turn, recently hit a Wildberries logistics facility inside Russia, part of a string of similar strikes.
(jh)
Source: PAP, Polish Radio, Reuters