Russian Strikes on Kyiv Intensify as 2026 Threatens to Be the Capital's Deadliest Year of the War

Most nights, starting around 10 o'clock, the subway stations of Kyiv turn into dormitories. People lay out mattresses and pitch small tents along the cold walls. Children curl up against adults, and pets settle beside their owners or in the gaps between strangers. The city has too few shelters for its 4 million residents, so the metro fills the gap.

Halyna is one of those who come. She told DW she was holding her 5-year-old son, Roman, close and said, "We're alive. We've been lucky once again." On most evenings she takes him to the nearest station even when no air-raid siren has sounded. Her apartment is in the Lukyanivka district, an area Russia has systematically targeted across the four years and eight months of the war.

Until a few months ago, Kyiv was relatively calm compared with the front lines elsewhere in Ukraine. That has changed as Russia widens its attacks on the capital, and the city increasingly resembles a front-line one. According to Kyiv's military administration, 140 people were killed in the capital in the first eight months of 2026. For all of 2025 the figure was 172. If the pace holds, 2026 would become the deadliest year for Kyiv since the invasion began in 2022.

One of the dead was 14-year-old Daniel Umanskyj. In September he was doing homework in his room when a Russian drone hit his apartment building in the central Pechersk district. A neighbor, Vlad, happened to be in the hallway with his daughter at that moment. He said they had been running late that day and that this saved their lives. "Daniel's death is a tragedy," he said, adding, "These sick monsters don't care who they kill." Flowers have been planted in front of the damaged building in the boy's memory.

Schools have been hit too. In early October a drone struck a school building in southwestern Kyiv, but pupils and teachers were already in shelters. Principal Valentyna Chorna told DW the school teaches all its pupils in person because its large shelter can hold more than 500 students. With room for everyone, children in grades one through nine can attend.

Not every school is so equipped, and attendance depends on more than the parents' or administrators' choices. It also depends on whether a shelter is available and how long the siren sounds. If an alarm goes off in the morning while children are still at home, they may miss school that day. A colleague at DW's Kyiv bureau, whose daughter is in school, called this an enormous burden: you have to go to work, and the child stays home alone. Even the walk to school is dangerous, she said, because an alarm can sound at any moment. Her daughter's school is not far from the Antonov aircraft factory, and one day the girl texted her about a huge explosion. The mother did not know whether something had been shot down or struck. In September a drone also hit their own building. The apartment was undamaged and her daughter was at school, but she described it as another reminder that survival has become a matter of luck.

The strain extends beyond the shelters. Attacks on warehouses have caused supermarket shortages on a scale not seen since the first months of the war. At the end of September, emergency power outages returned to Kyiv, and a Russian attack paralyzed the subway. With the energy infrastructure under fire, it is unclear how the city can reliably provide heat, electricity and water this winter.

Still, the city holds. The Kyiv International Institute of Sociology reported in early October that 72% of residents said in September they were prepared to endure the war as long as necessary. Authorities are trying to keep daily life going: the curfew has been shortened to 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., and some facilities may keep operating during "yellow" alerts. During "red" alerts, which can signal ballistic missiles, cruise missiles or large combined attacks, people must take shelter immediately. The question now is whether the energy system can carry the city through the cold months.