Israeli teen killed in Russian drone attack on Kyiv apartment building

A 14-year-old Ukrainian boy with Israeli citizenship was killed in a Russian drone strike on an apartment building in Kyiv on Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said.

The boy was later identified as Daniel Umansky, whose family had immigrated to Israel before returning to Ukraine 20 years ago.

Ukrainian officials said five people were killed in the attack and that at least 20 people were injured, with President Volodymyr Zelensky condemning it as “absolutely savage and sickening.”

The teen’s mother reportedly injured her arm in the blast that struck their apartment building in Kyiv’s Pecherskyi district around 8 a.m. She was evacuated to a nearby hospital in moderate condition. Umansky’s younger brother was also in the apartment when the drone hit, but managed to survive unscathed.

The family’s home was located near the Israeli Embassy, according to the Ynet news site.

Israel’s embassy in Kyiv and the Foreign Ministry’s Situation Center for Israelis in Distress Abroad were in touch with the family of the victim, the ministry said, which condemned the attack.

The Foreign Ministry also tweeted a condemnation of the attack, expressing its condolences to the victims and wishing a speedy recovery to the wounded.

Ynet reported that the teen’s family was working to have the boy’s body flown to Israel for burial, as his grandparents live there.

Reuters footage from the Friday strike showed smoke billowing from a heavily damaged apartment block, with ambulances carrying away the wounded, and rescuers searching through debris, as emergency crews worked at multiple strike sites across the capital.

Later in the day, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said the bodies of four people had been found in a parking lot in a separate daytime strike on an office building. Another seven people were wounded, he said.

Residents described growing exhaustion and fear after months of regular air attacks.

“Every day, it’s as if you’re living under a gun. Every morning, my alarm clock is an (Iran-made) Shahed drone,” said Anna, 29, the granddaughter of a local resident whose apartment block was damaged in the strike.

Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians in the war, triggered by its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

The United Nations said on Friday its monitoring mission in Ukraine had recorded at least 200 civilian deaths in September from attacks that also damaged “homes, hospitals, shops and workplaces.”

Russia’s defense ministry said its forces had carried out overnight drone strikes on Ukrainian defence industry facilities, logistics centers and vessels used by Kyiv’s armed forces.

In Ukraine’s latest attacks on Russia, a drone strike forced the suspension of operations at the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery in the Rostov region. Zelensky confirmed the strike, saying Ukraine had also hit a similar facility in Perm and a defense enterprise in Ulyanovsk.

Zelensky said that the United States proposed that the United Arab Emirates host a trilateral meeting with Ukraine and Russia to discuss efforts to end their four-and-a-half-year conflict.

“The American side has proposed… meeting at a technical level in a three-way format,” Zelensky told reporters in a briefing via WhatsApp. “We are awaiting a proposal from the United States regarding the date, and the United States has suggested the Emirates as a possible location.”

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.