- May 26, 2026
- 4:12 pm
- Ukraine
In Kyiv, efforts continue to eliminate the consequences of yesterday’s Russian strikes. Rescuers, utility services, medics, police, and volunteers are working at the sites of destruction. Almost 100 employees of the State Emergency Service are involved in restoration and emergency work, and the dismantling of dangerous structures is still ongoing.
According to Ukrainian data, about 300 objects in the capital have been damaged. Most of them are residential buildings: during the day, applications were received for various degrees of damage to almost 150 private and multi-apartment buildings.
Currently, 87 people are known to be injured in Kyiv, including three children. Twenty-one people are in hospitals, while the rest are receiving outpatient care. The capital’s police have already received more than 540 reports of damaged property.
This is no longer just another report on a nighttime attack. It is a picture of a city that, in the morning after the Russian strike, counts not only the downed targets but also the broken windows, damaged apartments, destroyed entrances, burned premises, and human injuries.
Russian strike on Kyiv: homes, museum, and memory
Rescuers of the State Emergency Service spent more than 15 hours extinguishing fires that arose after Russia’s combined attack on Ukrainian cities and communities. The work did not end immediately after the fire was extinguished: dangerous structures are still being dismantled in Kyiv, buildings are being checked, and residents are being assisted.
In total, six regions of Ukraine suffered from yesterday’s shelling. For Kyiv, this strike was especially severe not only because of the number of injured and damaged houses but also because of the blow to cultural memory.
About 40% of the museum items from the exposition of the National Museum “Chernobyl” were irretrievably lost.
This is a separate line of tragedy. Russia tried to destroy not only walls, roofs, and windows but also the memory of Chernobyl — an event that has long become part of Ukrainian, European, and world history.
Museum staff and rescuers immediately began evacuating exhibits after the strike. They managed to save items from the storage facilities, a painting by Maria Prymachenko, and the Ukrainian flag, which was installed at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant after the de-occupation in 2022.
For the Israeli audience, this detail is especially understandable. When museums, archives, memorials, and spaces of memory come under attack, it is not only about material damage. It is an attempt to strike at the right of a people to remember themselves, their pain, and their history.
Israeli diplomats at Lukyanivka: who visited the strike site
At the invitation of Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha, on May 25, 2026, more than 70 leaders and representatives of foreign diplomatic missions visited the site of the Russian strike in the Lukyanivka district of Kyiv. The diplomats honored the memory of the deceased and laid flowers.
The full list of countries whose representatives were at the strike site was not publicly disclosed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Therefore, it is correct to speak not of a complete list of states but of those diplomatic missions whose participation or reaction was separately confirmed in open reports.
Among them is Israel.
The Embassy of Israel in Ukraine reported that the Deputy Ambassador of the State of Israel Mila Tzur, along with representatives of foreign diplomatic missions, visited the site of the Russian strike at Lukyanivka at the invitation of Andriy Sybiha.
During the visit, the diplomats honored the memory of the deceased and laid flowers at the site of the tragedy.
The Embassy of Israel expressed “deep condolences to the families of the deceased and injured, and also confirmed solidarity with the people of Ukraine in the face of ongoing Russian attacks against civilian infrastructure.”
This gesture is important right now. The Israeli presence at the strike site is not a formal diplomatic photo but a public signal: strikes on civilian objects should not become the usual backdrop of war.
USA, EU, Poland, France, and Canada: what is known from open reports
From open reports, it is also known that the acting Chargé d’Affaires of the USA in Ukraine, Julie Davis, stated her personal visit to the strike site and condemned the Russian attack.
Against the backdrop of Russian threats to foreign diplomatic missions in Kyiv, reactions were publicly voiced by representatives of the European Union, Poland, and France. The EU Ambassador to Ukraine, Katarina Mathernova, stated that the European Union remains in Kyiv. The Polish side separately emphasized that any strike on Polish diplomatic missions would be considered deliberate. The French embassy was also mentioned among those continuing to operate as usual.
The Canadian diplomatic mission supported reports of the visit of more than 70 foreign representatives to the site of the Russian strike, but a separate open list of participants by country was not published.
Therefore, the most accurate wording for the article is this: representatives of more than 70 foreign diplomatic missions were at Lukyanivka; Israel’s participation was separately confirmed through Deputy Ambassador Mila Tzur, and the reactions and participation of representatives of the USA, EU, Poland, France, and Canada were publicly recorded in the diplomatic context after the strike.
Moscow tried to intimidate the diplomatic corps but got the opposite effect
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine called the new Russian threats to foreign diplomats shameless blackmail. The Ukrainian foreign policy department emphasized: Russia has been using the full range of deadly missiles and drones against Kyiv for more than four years and three months, and strikes on the capital have not stopped for almost a single week.
Against this backdrop, Moscow’s attempts to intimidate foreign diplomats look not like a warning but like an admission. Russia is effectively showing that its shelling is aimed not only at destroying Ukrainian cities but also at putting pressure on the international presence in Ukraine.
That is why the visit of diplomats to Lukyanivka acquired political significance.
Kyiv did not hide the consequences of the strike. On the contrary, Ukraine showed foreign representatives the destroyed buildings, the place of people’s deaths, and the real traces of the Russian attack. This is stronger than any diplomatic press release because it works through direct testimony.
In this context, NAnovosti — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency considers Israeli participation in such a visit as an important element of public solidarity. For Israel, which itself faces threats of missile strikes, terrorism, and attacks on civilian infrastructure, the Ukrainian experience is not a distant history. It is a conversation about how democratic states respond to attempts to break civil society by force.
Why the issue of air defense has become paramount again
After the attack, the Ukrainian side once again emphasized: there should be more protection. Support for air defense remains a daily priority of Ukraine’s foreign policy work at all levels.
This is not about symbolic assistance. Every additional air defense system, every package of ammunition, every strengthening of the Ukrainian sky is not abstract military support but specific saved lives.
Kyiv thanks partners who condemned the strike. But at the same time, Ukraine speaks of the need for real steps: pressure on the aggressor, sanctions, international legal responsibility, and strengthening defense.
For Israel, there is another important layer in this story. Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities show how quickly war turns into pressure on civilian infrastructure, medicine, utilities, museums, diplomatic missions, and memory. This is not a peripheral topic. It is a question of whether state terror can be allowed to become the norm of international politics.
Russia tried to show strength through the strike. Kyiv responded with the presence of rescuers, doctors, volunteers, diplomats, and people who continue to rebuild the city.
And among those who came to the site of the tragedy were Israeli diplomats.
This does not negate the pain of destruction and does not return the lost museum items. But it records an important thing: the consequences of the Russian strike were seen not only by Ukrainians. They were seen by the diplomatic corps, including representatives of Israel, the USA, the EU, and other partners of Ukraine.
Moscow wanted to intimidate. Kyiv showed the world the facts.