Russian missile strike kills three in Zelenskiy’s hometown Kryvyi Rih

A Russian missile killed three people and injured 25 in Kryvyi Rih, the central Ukrainian city where President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was born, after striking a populated area with what Ukrainian officials described as an Iskander-M ballistic missile carrying a cluster munition warhead. Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the city’s defense council, said 20 of the injured were hospitalized, including three in serious condition and one in extremely serious condition.

The dead were found within 200 meters of one another, a detail that pointed to how tightly the blast was concentrated in the neighborhood. Local reporting identified the victims as two men, ages 25 and 34, and a 54-year-old woman. Officials said the attack damaged both civilian and industrial infrastructure, but did not immediately give a complete accounting of the destruction.

Kryvyi Rih declared a day of mourning for June 24. The city, a major industrial center in the Dnipropetrovsk region, has been hit repeatedly since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. Vilkul said Russian missile and drone attacks on Kryvyi Rih have killed 118 civilians, including 16 children, since the start of the war.

Zelenskiy said ballistic missiles remain a major problem and pressed for faster deliveries of air-defense munitions, arguing that delay in protection costs lives. His appeal came as Kyiv continues to seek additional air-defense support from NATO and other partners, underscoring how central missile interception has become to Ukraine’s war effort as Russian strikes continue to land far from the front line.

The broader civilian toll across Ukraine remains severe. The United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said May 2026 brought at least 274 civilian deaths and 1,763 injuries nationwide, the highest monthly civilian casualty total since April 2022. Over four years of hostilities, the UN said more than 15,000 civilians have been killed and more than 41,000 injured.

The Kryvyi Rih strike fits a pattern that has marked much of the war: repeated missile and drone attacks on cities, industrial sites and residential districts well behind the front. For Ukraine, each hit adds to the strain on emergency services, power systems and production. For Moscow, the attacks keep pressure on civilian life while testing whether Kyiv can maintain enough interceptors to blunt future ballistic strikes.