At least 38 people were killed and dozens wounded after a Russian drone attack on an ammunitions warehouse on Saturday triggered a large fire and multiple explosions that lasted hours in a residential area near Kyiv.

The attack in the Bucha district came amid near constant aerial assaults from Russia, which continued into Sunday. But it was likely the ammunition in the warehouse being hit that had catastrophic consequences.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to punish those responsible for allowing explosive materials to be stored this close to people’s homes.

Videos and photos shared by local residents show several completely destroyed buildings, with a little more than a few bare walls and scorched earth left.

Speaking about the attack, Zelensky said the strike hit an ammunition storage facility, which he said “should not have been there.”

He said the strike caused shells, mines, other munitions and drones stored at the facility to explode.

 

“It is a horrific situation, and there has been appalling negligence by those who stored explosive materials right next to where people were living,” the Ukrainian president said, adding that a criminal investigation into the incident was underway.

Separately, the office of Ukraine’s Prosecutor General said in a statement that “explosive objects and materials” were stored in the premises and that an investigation would be opened into “the circumstances surrounding the explosion on the premises of the facility and the actions of the officials responsible.”

The incident is particularly worrying as it comes just weeks after seven people died when a Russian strike hit a warehouse storing large quantities of ammunition in a residential area in Vyshneve near Kyiv, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the site of the incident on Saturday.

Zelensky said a care home for elderly citizens and people living with disabilities was among the dozens of building damaged in the latest attack, and that more than 300 emergency services personnel were responding at the scene.

Ukrainian authorities said Taras Didych, the long-time head of the local municipality was among those killed when he arrived at the scene to help.

“He always stood by his people. He did not abandon them even during the Russian occupation — he was there, offering support and assistance, and keeping the community together during one of the most terrifying periods,” Mykola Kalashnyk, Ukrane’s Minister for Recovery, Infrastructure and Transport, said in a statement.

Days of non-stop terror

The deadly blast came as Kyiv has endured more than two days of near non-stop Russian attacks.

According to a CNN tally, there were 28 air raid alerts between midnight on Thursday and midday on Saturday, lasting more than 28 hours in total.

A two-year old girl who was seriously wounded in one of the many attacks on Saturday died of her injuries, Kyiv’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Five others were injured across the city.

There were also strikes on other regions overnight into Saturday, with attacks reported Odesa, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Kherson, Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Donetsk, and Chernihiv regions. More than 260 attack drones were involved, as well as Banderol drones, Zelensky said.

While some missile strikes were recorded on Thursday, most of the attacks over the past few days were by jet-powered drones. These are a relatively new addition to Russia’s arsenal, having been first spotted around the start of the year.

Last month, Ukraine was attacked by around 1,500 jet-powered “Shahed’ drones; this month, the figure has already reached over 2,500, according to an adviser to Zelensky, Serhiy Beskrestnov.

Such drones are being launched at Ukraine practically straight from the factory.

 

Jet-powered drones fly at speeds of up to 500 kilometers per hour (310 miles per hour), evading Ukraine’s air defenses. They are also too fast for Kyiv’s mobile fire groups, so the only way to shoot them down is with ground-to-air missiles or fighter jets – both of which are in extremely limited supply in Ukraine.

“The Russians have significantly stepped up their use of jet-powered UAVs and their numbers will continue to rise, because the Russians recognize their effectiveness,” Pavlo Palisa, the deputy head of Zelensky’s Presidential Office, told reporters on Saturday, adding that Ukraine needs to adapt its defenses.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Evgeniy Khmara said Saturday that the search for countermeasures continues.

Field trials have already been carried out on interceptors capable of shooting down jet-powered drones, he said, adding the aim is to bring these solutions up to the required level as quickly as possible and scale up production to thousands of units.