In Kyiv, a 14-year-old Israeli was killed by a Russian Shahed drone. His mother was injured, his younger brother survived

On the morning of September 25, 2026, a Russian drone hit a 16-story residential building in the Pechersk district of Kyiv. A 14-year-old boy died, and seven residents of the high-rise were injured. Ukrainian authorities initially did not disclose the child’s nationality, but later Israeli Ynet reported: the deceased was Israeli, his mother was injured and is in the hospital, and his younger brother, who was also in the apartment, was not physically harmed.

Author: Editorial Staff of NANews

A few hours later, Kyiv was hit again. At 15:03, the city’s official portal reported that after a UAV hit an office building in the Solomianskyi district, the bodies of three more deceased were found in the parking lot, and seven people were injured. Thus, taking into account the teenager who died in the morning, by this time, at least four deaths in Kyiv on September 25 were known.

Strike around eight in the morning

An air raid alert was declared in Kyiv at 07:58. Already at 08:19, city authorities reported a UAV hit in a residential high-rise in the Pechersk district. Initially, the KMDA indicated the level of 7–10 floors; the police later reported a hit approximately at the level of 10–11 floors. The difference is related to the first assessments on the spot and does not change the main point: the strike hit directly the residential part of the 16-story building.

According to a journalist from ‘Novini LIVE’ working on the scene, about 30 apartments and cars parked near the building were damaged. Seven residents were injured: two, according to preliminary information, were moderately injured, and five others were lightly injured. Rescuers, police, and bomb technicians continued to inspect the building, so the data changed throughout the day.

By noon, the scale of the consequences throughout Kyiv turned out to be greater. At 12:24, city authorities reported already 20 injured in the capital. Eight of the injured were in hospitals, including a nine-year-old girl. Then a new air raid alert began, and after 14:43, a report came in about another UAV hit — this time in an office building in the Solomianskyi district.

Ynet: the family had Israeli citizenship and lived in Kyiv for several years

The Israeli part of this story appeared separately from the initial reports of the Ukrainian authorities. Ynet, citing its own information, wrote that the deceased boy belonged to a Jewish family with Israeli citizenship, which moved to Kyiv several years ago.

According to the publication, the drone hit directly the family apartment. The teenager’s mother sustained a hand injury and was hospitalized in moderate condition. His younger brother was also inside the apartment but was not physically harmed.

Ynet reports another detail: the family requested to have the child’s body delivered to Israel for burial, as his grandparents live there. Moreover, it is now known what was not in the first reports: the Israeli Foreign Ministry is already involved in the work on this case. The family is being assisted by the Jewish community of Kyiv and the Jewish Relief Network Ukraine — the JRNU emergency assistance network operating under Chabad. It maintains contact with the family and the Israeli organization ZAKA in case of the need to organize the transportation of the body to Israel.

For the Israeli reader, ZAKA is well known for its work after terrorist attacks, disasters, and mass tragedies. In this case, it is about helping the family and possibly organizing the repatriation of the body, not about announcing that the funeral date has already been set.

The house is located in the Pechersk district near the Israeli embassy, which is on Lesya Ukrainka Boulevard. This proximity currently has only geographical significance: there is no data that the Israeli diplomatic mission or specifically the Israeli family was the target of the Russian strike.

Filming Shahed or doing homework: what is known about the last minutes

Here, two details from different sources have emerged, and it is not yet possible to artificially turn them into one precise chronology.

Representatives of the district administration told a journalist from ‘Novini LIVE’, working near the destroyed house, that the 14-year-old boy was filming the flying Shahed on video. The publication does not report whether the recording was preserved, how much time passed after the filming before the explosion, and where exactly the teenager was at the time of filming.

Ynet, in turn, writes that, according to the information received by the editorial staff, at the moment of the hit, the teenager was in his room doing homework.

These reports do not necessarily contradict each other: the boy could have seen the drone and filmed it shortly before the strike, and then ended up in the room. But a confirmed minute-by-minute sequence is not yet available. Therefore, it is correct to present both details with source indication, without drawing the last minutes of the child’s life independently.

295 drones in one attack, including 52 jet Shaheds

The strike on the Pechersk district was part of a large air attack that began on the evening of September 24. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched 295 drones of various types, and by morning, the Ukrainian air defense reported suppressing or destroying 267 targets.

The peculiarity of this attack is the large number of faster jet devices. Ukrainian military counted 52 jet Shaheds.

Around the same time when another alert was declared in Kyiv, the Air Force warned of the movement of jet drones towards the capital. Therefore, Ukrainian media linked the hit on Pechersk specifically with a jet Shahed.

But the exact modification of the drone that broke through the residential building has not yet been publicly named by the police. This is an important boundary: it is possible to talk about a jet Shahed in the Kyiv area and about the mass use of such devices in this attack, but it is not yet possible to assert without expertise that the apartment was hit specifically by a ‘Geran-3’ or another model.

Iranian technology returned to an Israeli family already in Kyiv

For Israel, another connection arises here, and it is much broader than one specific drone.

Shahed is originally an Iranian family of strike drones. The jet Shahed-238 became a further development of the more well-known propeller Shahed-136. Israel encountered drones of this family directly in confrontation with Iran.

Russia first received Iranian devices and technologies, then localized production and began to noticeably change the design for its own tasks. Navigation, engines, communication, warheads, protection against electronic warfare — the Russian ‘Geran’ family has gradually moved quite far from the first imported Shaheds.

That is why it would be inaccurate to write: ‘an Iranian drone killed an Israeli in Kyiv’. The specific device could well have been manufactured already in Russia, and its modification has not yet been publicly established.

But the origin of the technology does not disappear from this. Russia received the Shahed base from Iran, deployed serial production, and continued to develop this platform as its own weapon. As a result, the technology that Israel was accustomed to perceiving as a threat from Tehran is now used in Russian modifications against Ukrainian cities — and on September 25, a child from an Israeli family died in one of such houses.

NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency has already thoroughly analyzed this technological chain in the material ‘Did Iran request Geran-5 from Russia for war with Israel and the USA? What is really known’. Today, this story has gained another dimension: the connection between Iran, Russia, Ukraine, and Israel has ceased to be only a topic of military analysis and has reached one specific apartment in Kyiv.

Kyiv for several consecutive days: residential buildings, data centers, offices

The context of recent days is also important. Russian drones have been hitting Kyiv for several consecutive nights, and the consequences are recorded simultaneously in residential areas, business facilities, transport, and telecommunications infrastructure.

On September 23, internet providers ‘Pavutina’ and UTELS reported damage to the capital’s data centers, where network equipment was located. The next day, three more operators — ‘Domonet’, Kievnet, and Faust — reported infrastructure damage after attacks on Kyiv data centers. This led to disruptions in internet services not only in Kyiv itself: for example, in Lutsk, due to infrastructure problems, electronic public transport displays stopped working properly.

From these facts, it is not yet possible to automatically conclude that each specific data center was pre-selected as an independent military target. But it is possible to say another thing: over several days, Russian strikes repeatedly damaged the infrastructure of Ukrainian data centers and internet providers, along with hits on residential buildings and other civilian buildings.

A day before the death of the 14-year-old boy, on September 24, two people died in Kyiv after a Russian attack. One of the strikes hit near a maternity hospital: cars caught fire, and the building was damaged. In other areas, warehouse and administrative buildings were affected.

On September 25, the sequence continued. First, a teenager died in Pechersk. During the day, after another air raid alert, a drone hit an office building in the Solomianskyi district. At 15:03, Kyiv authorities reported three bodies found and seven injured at this location.

How many children have already died: the official list grew by 87 cases in less than a year

Behind the tragedy of one family lies statistics that are easy to read too quickly.

The Ukrainian state platform ‘Children of War’, using data from the Office of the Prosecutor General, as of September 24, 2026, recorded 744 deceased and 2903 injured children since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion. The platform itself warns that the exact number cannot be established due to ongoing hostilities and the occupation of part of Ukrainian territory.

On October 1, 2025, the official website of the President of Ukraine cited the words of First Lady Olena Zelenska about 657 deceased children. It turns out that in less than a year, the number of child deaths confirmed by Ukrainian authorities increased by 87 cases.

However, this does not automatically mean that all 87 children were killed during this period. Investigators continue to establish previously unknown circumstances, identify the deceased, and receive information from temporarily occupied territories. Therefore, it is more accurate to say: from October 1, 2025, to September 24, 2026, the official list grew from 657 to 744 confirmed deceased children.

How severe this year has become is also visible from independent UN statistics. Only in July, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission confirmed 17 deceased and 166 injured children — the highest monthly figure of child casualties since April 2022.

In the first eight months of 2026, the UN confirmed 2222 deceased and 13,058 injured civilians in Ukraine. This is already more than for the entire year of 2025. Only in August, long-range missiles and drones caused the death of 194 people and injured another 1077, with most of such victims being far from the front line, in urban centers.

In the number 744, he was not yet included

The official Ukrainian statistics have a specific date — September 24. At that time, the number of deceased children on the list was 744.

The 14-year-old boy from the Pechersk district of Kyiv died already on the morning of September 25. Therefore, independently changing the official number to 745 before the next registry update would be incorrect.

But behind the dry date difference is already a known story. A Jewish family with Israeli citizenship lived in Kyiv for several years. In the morning, a Russian drone hit their apartment. The mother sustained a hand injury and ended up in the hospital. The younger son survived. The elder was 14 years old.

According to the district administration, shortly before his death, he was filming the flying Shahed. According to Ynet, at the moment of the strike, the boy was in his room. Now the Israeli Foreign Ministry, the Kyiv Jewish community, JRNU, and ZAKA are helping the family, which wants to bury the child in Israel next to relatives.

And while this family decides how to bring their son home, the attack on Kyiv did not end. A few hours after the strike on their home, a drone hit the city again — and the authorities reported three more deaths.