OPINION: Kyiv Under Missiles Again — The Unbearable Routine of Russian Terror

OPINION: Kyiv Under Missiles Again — The Unbearable Routine of Russian Terror

Introduction: the evening of June 25, the explosions returned

9 p.m., Kyiv, ballistic alert

There are news items that no longer surprise — which makes receiving them even more painful. On the evening of June 25, 2026, at 9 p.m. local time, Kyiv was once again placed under a ballistic alert. Iskander-M missiles launched from the Bryansk and Kursk regions targeted the Ukrainian capital. Explosions rang out across the city. Mayor Vitali Klitschko posted on Telegram, as he has done for years, the same formula: "Air defenses are active. Stay in shelters."

In the Darnytskyi district, missile debris ignited a fire in a warehouse. Two people were injured and treated on site. These modest figures — modest in the sense that they could have been far worse — say nothing about the fact that hundreds of thousands of Kyivans spent yet another evening in basements, metro corridors, or reinforced shelters, waiting for it to pass.

An attack among so many others — that is precisely the problem

This was not the summer's first strike. On June 15, 2026, Kyiv had endured a "massive combined attack" of more than 60 missiles — the season's worst — that killed five people and set the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra ablaze, a site listed on the UNESCO World Heritage register. June 25 was a more limited strike. But the word "limited" is relative: limited compared to the worst, not limited in any absolute sense. For those experiencing it, every strike is absolute.

And that is the underlying problem this opinion piece aims to name: normalization. The routinization of terror. The fact that millions of human beings in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Odesa live under the permanent threat of missiles and drones as though it were a weather condition — with its fair days and its storms. This is not normal. It should never be normal.

The Darnytskyi district: a geography of ordinary destruction

Recurring returns to the same ground

The Darnytskyi district has become, in this war's chronicle, a recurring name. This left-bank neighborhood of Kyiv — residential, industrial, cut through by the ring road — has been struck during multiple waves of bombardment since 2022. Damaged residential buildings, burning warehouses, cars scorched by debris — the residents of Darnytskyi know their neighborhood is on Russia's targeting map.

On June 25, 2026, according to reports from RBC-Ukraine and the Kyiv Independent, it was a warehouse that burned following the impact of ballistic debris. Emergency services worked several hours to extinguish the blaze. The scene was filmed, shared on social media, viewed by millions of people — then displaced in the news feeds by other images, other disasters, other emergencies.

The logistics of daily survival

What the images do not show is the logistics of survival that Kyivans have developed after four years of war. "Emergency bags" prepared in advance, containing documents, medication, water, phone chargers. Mobile alert apps that have replaced sirens as the first signal. Nocturnal routines — wake up, go down to the shelter, wait, come back up — that have become as ordinary as going to work.

This adaptation is both impressive and terrifying. It speaks to a people's resilience — and it also speaks to what this people has been forced to adapt to. Let us name this adaptation without making it a subject of wonder: these people do not want to be resilient. They must be, because no one is protecting them sufficiently. That is a very different thing.

The mechanics of a ballistic strike: what happens in seven minutes

Iskander-M: the trajectory of terror

An Iskander-M missile launched from the Bryansk region takes approximately seven minutes to reach Kyiv. Seven minutes. In that span of time, Ukrainian detection systems must identify the launch, calculate the trajectory, issue the alert, and air defense systems must position themselves. It is an extreme engineering and organizational challenge — all the more so because ballistic missiles fly at very high altitude and dive steeply, making interception more complex than that of drones or cruise missiles.

On June 25, according to UA.News, Ukraine downed 3 ballistic missiles out of 7 fired — an interception rate of 43 percent in that category. The remainder struck or were deflected. It is in that residual 57 percent that the Darnytskyi wounded, the fires, and the damage lie. Every missile that gets through is a failure — not of the Ukrainian military fighting with available means, but of the international community that has not provided enough air defense systems.

Air defense as a strategic challenge

Ukraine has received Patriot batteries, NASAMS systems, reinforced S-300s, and various generations of European systems. But the numbers remain insufficient against the volume and diversity of Russian attacks — ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, Shahed drones in swarms. The combination of these systems in the same night of attack — as on June 25–26 — creates deliberate saturation: forcing defenses to choose priorities and let through what they cannot intercept.

Every successful strike on Kyiv is also an argument Zelensky brings before his allies: give us more air defense. This is not rhetorical — it is a precise, quantified, urgent operational request. The slowness of certain delivery decisions has a direct human cost.

Context: one night in a long series

June 15 and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra

Less than two weeks before the June 25 attack, Kyiv had endured one of the heaviest strikes of 2026. On June 15, more than 60 missiles had targeted the capital — killing five people, wounding dozens, and heavily damaging the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, an eleventh-century monastery listed on the UNESCO World Heritage register. Medieval frescoes, stone religious buildings, a site that had survived centuries and invasions — partially consumed in minutes because Russian missiles had missed, or deliberately targeted, this irreplaceable heritage.

The attack on a UNESCO heritage site had triggered immediate international condemnation. The UNESCO representative had declared there should be "no red carpet for Russian artists" in the world. A few weeks later, the missiles returned. Without causing as much damage this time — but they returned. Because they always return.

The following night: June 26 over Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Kharkiv

The night of June 25–26 did not only target Kyiv. According to reports from UA.News and the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia also struck Kremenchuk in Poltava with missiles and drones, causing a power outage. The next day, June 26, Zaporizhzhia was struck in broad daylight. Odesa, Kharkiv, and other regions suffered power cuts following damage to energy infrastructure. It is a war against civilian infrastructure, waged simultaneously across the entire territory — a deliberate strategy of exhausting the population.

The objective is clear to any observer: break the will to resist by making daily life unbearable. Darkness, cold in winter, water shortages, hospitals running on generators — Putin hopes that fatigue will ultimately outweigh determination. Four years on, the strategy has not worked. But it continues to cost lives and immense suffering.

The memory of strikes: a people who refuse to forget

The lists of the dead and their names

One thing Ukrainians have done since the war's beginning, with a consistency worth noting: they name their dead. Not abstract figures — names, faces, professions, cities. Zelensky himself does this regularly in his daily addresses. Ukrainian media maintain public databases of civilian victims. This practice of naming is a political act of resistance as much as a moral duty: it refuses death to become abstract, refuses individuals to dissolve into statistics.

On June 25, 2026, two names could have been added to that list — the two wounded from Darnytskyi. They were not, because the attack was relatively limited. But in other nights, other attacks, other cities — the names grow longer.

The world's growing indifference: the real scandal

Here is the hard truth this opinion piece must name: the world is getting used to it. News agencies are deploying fewer and fewer permanent correspondents in Ukraine. News channels are reducing their coverage in favor of other crises. Western public opinion shows measurable signs of fatigue in polls. Political leaders seek formulations that allow them to reduce support without appearing to abandon Ukraine.

This growing indifference is the real scandal of this war — not because it is unexpected, but because it is predictable, humanly understandable, and yet politically unacceptable. Every strike on Kyiv that the world no longer hears is encouragement for Putin to continue. Habit serves as capitulation.

What international law says — and what it does not do

The definition of war crimes and their application

Deliberate strikes on civilian infrastructure, residential areas, and cultural heritage sites — all of this constitutes war crimes under the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute. The International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Vladimir Putin for the deportation of Ukrainian children. Other investigations are underway regarding strikes against civilians. International law has its instruments.

But international law without enforcement remains a formal framework. Putin will not travel to countries that apply the arrest warrant while he remains at the head of the Kremlin. Legal proceedings advance slowly — infinitely more slowly than missiles. This gap between law and reality is one of the structural tragedies of the international order.

The responsibility to protect: a poorly applied doctrine

The doctrine of the responsibility to protect — R2P in UN parlance — stipulates that the international community has a responsibility to intervene when a state fails to protect its population against grave human rights violations. In Ukraine, this doctrine is invoked symbolically. It has not produced direct intervention — for understandable reasons, particularly the risk of nuclear escalation — but its invocation widens the gap between proclaimed principles and the actions actually consented to.

Military support for Ukraine — weapons, ammunition, air defense, intelligence — is the form R2P takes in this conflict. It is insufficient to fully protect Ukrainian civilians. But it is what is possible without triggering a direct conflict between nuclear powers. We must at least acknowledge that tension honestly.

The future of Kyiv: resistance, reconstruction, renaissance

A city that refuses to die

Kyiv in 2026 is a paradoxical city. Its cafes and restaurants are open. Its museums have partially reopened. Its universities continue to teach, partly online, partly in person. Its artists exhibit, its musicians play, its poets write. This cultural and social vitality under missiles is not denial — it is active resistance. Not allowing the war to reduce the city to a mere target.

But Kyiv also bears its scars. Damaged neighborhoods not yet rebuilt. Displaced families who have not all been able to return. An economy running on generators and load-shedding schedules. A population that has learned to live with anxiety as a permanent companion. These scars will not be easily erased, even when peace returns.

The cost of reconstruction: staggering figures

Estimates for the cost of rebuilding Ukraine run into hundreds of billions of dollars. The World Bank, the European Commission, and specialized organizations have published estimates exceeding $500 billion for complete reconstruction. These figures include physical infrastructure — roads, bridges, buildings, factories, power plants — but also the lost human capital: the dead, the wounded, the displaced, the talent that left the country.

Reconstruction will be partly financed by frozen Russian assets in the West — estimated at around $300 billion in Russian central bank assets. Their mobilization is politically and legally complex, but it is moving forward. It will be a form of economic justice — using the aggressor's resources to repair the damage caused by his aggression.

Europe and the United States facing Ukraine's ballistic emergency

Kyiv's repeated calls for anti-ballistic systems

Volodymyr Zelensky and his ministers have repeated, at every international summit of 2026, the same priority request: additional anti-ballistic defense systems, specifically designed to intercept short- and medium-range missiles like the Iskander-M. Patriot batteries work — but their number remains insufficient against the volume and diversity of Russian strikes. Every night of strikes on Kyiv, like that of June 25, 2026, demonstrates this insufficiency in practice.

The allies' response has been progressive but insufficient. The NATO summit of July 2025 had promised additional deliveries. These deliveries have partially materialized — but the timeline is always too slow against the pace of strikes. This is not a complete lack of will, but a military delivery bureaucracy that is not calibrated to the urgency of an ongoing war.

What allies could do in the next 90 days

Analysts at the European Defense Institute have identified several concrete measures that allies could take within 90 days: accelerate the delivery of interceptor munitions for existing Patriot batteries, activate dormant production lines in Germany and Poland, and transfer several additional SAMP/T Franco-Italian batteries to Ukraine. These measures do not require new parliamentary decisions in most cases — they require executive will.

Every additional air defense system delivered to Ukraine is a Ukrainian life saved. That is not a metaphor — it is an arithmetic equation. And that equation should weigh in every ministerial defense meeting in Western capitals.

Conclusion: naming the routine to refuse forgetting

What this opinion piece asks of the reader

This opinion piece has one goal, simple yet difficult: to refuse that the strike of June 25, 2026 on Kyiv passes into oblivion as one statistic among many. Two wounded. A burning warehouse. One more night under missiles. These modest figures have a concrete human reality. Those two people treated on site exist. They have families, names, lives. The missile that wounded them was launched deliberately, by men following orders, to terrorize a civilian population.

That is a crime. And naming it as such — without fatigue, without habituation, without the analytical distance that transforms suffering into a concept — is the minimal responsibility of anyone who has a platform from which to do so.

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow, or in a few days, or in a few weeks, there will be another strike on Kyiv. Or on Kharkiv. Or on Odesa. The unbearable routine will continue until the conditions for a halt are in place — an armistice, a peace, a victory, a defeat. We do not know when or how. We know that until then, every night of strikes must be named, documented, transmitted — so that history retains what the present risks forgetting.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Opinion piece — declared bias

This piece is an opinion genre with an acknowledged bias. I take the side of Ukraine, its civilians, and their right to live in safety. I regard Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities as deliberate war crimes. This judgment colors every line of this text. I am pro-Ukraine, anti-Russian aggression, and convinced that Western support for Kyiv is morally necessary and strategically sound.

Sources and method

All factual data — number of wounded, targets struck, systems used — come from verified and dated sources from June 25–26, 2026: Kyiv Independent, RBC-Ukraine, UA.News, ISW. I do not invent testimonies or attribute words to people who are not their documented author.

Sources

Primary sources

Kyiv Independent — Russian ballistic missile strike on Kyiv — June 25, 2026

RBC-Ukraine — Fires in Kyiv after Russian attack — June 25, 2026

UA.News — Air defenses down 3 ballistic missiles and 174 drones — June 26, 2026

Secondary sources

UNN — Missile debris in Darnytskyi — June 25, 2026

Censor.net — Consequences of the ballistic attack on Kyiv — June 26, 2026

Straits Times — Ukrainian air defenses repel Russian attack — June 26, 2026