Russia attacked the Ukrainian capital with drones and missiles overnight. It comes after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s top aide Andrii Yermak quit yesterday in a corruption probe. Follow the latest.
Saturday 29 November 2025 08:54, UK
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We can now bring you more pictures from the aftermath of the Russian attack on Kyiv, which hit several residential buildings across the greater region.
Rescue teams were still at the site this morning, clearing the rubble and looking for survivors.
Kyiv continues to grapple with the resignation of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff Andrii Yermak, which was announced yesterday afternoon.
Yermak was both Zelenskyy’s top aide for over five years and a key negotiator in peace talks with the US.
He was leading Ukraine’s effort to push back against peace terms proposed by the US that would satisfy many of Moscow’s territorial demands.
Zelenskyy said he would consider a replacement today.
The resignation came hours after anti-corruption agents searched Yermak’s home. Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau said it was conducting the searches in connection to the high-profile corruption case involving state nuclear power monopoly Energoatom.
Watch: What do we know about Ukraine’s corruption scandal?
Yermak had confirmed his apartment was being searched and said he was cooperating.
He has previously been accused of attempting to stifle anti-corruption investigations, but not of profiting from the alleged embezzlement scheme himself.
At least three people were killed by Russian airstrikes in Kyiv and the surrounding region, which reportedly hit the Ukrainian capital at around 1am local time on Saturday (11pm UK time on Friday).
Also, 16 people, including one child, have been injured, according to the most recent update from Ukraine’s State Emergency Services.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a statement on social media that Russia had fired 36 cruise and ballistic missiles and about 600 drones in the overnight attack, that hit five regions across the country.
Read Zelenskyy’s full post below.
Several multi-storey residential buildings were struck in the attack, as were Ukrainian energy facilities.
The country’s energy ministry said this morning that 600,000 people in Ukraine were without power, including 500,000 in the capital.
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
The country is waking up to the aftermath of another intense overnight attack, which hit Kyiv after midnight.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service has reported that at least three people have died, while hundreds of thousands in the region appear to be without power.
We’ll bring you more on this in just a moment.
It comes after a tumultuous day for the Ukrainian government that saw the resignation of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s powerful chief of staff, Andrii Yelmak.
Anti-corruption investigators had raided his home yesterday after a large-scale graft scandal hit the country earlier this month.
That’s it for now but we’ll be back soon with more live coverage of the war in Ukraine.
Here’s a recap of today’s main developments…
Here’s a video explainer of the Ukraine corruption scandal from our defence and security editor Deborah Haynes…
And today we also had our latest Q&A with Professor Michael Clarke, our defence analyst – watch that back below…
A Ukraine-related story to bring you from South Africa now.
The daughter of former South African president Jacob Zuma has resigned today, her party said, after she came under investigation for allegedly tricking 17 men into joining a Russian mercenary group fighting in Ukraine.
Duduzile Zuma-Sambudla is a member of the opposition MK Party, led by her father, and her party says she is fully cooperating with the police.
The South African government said earlier this month that they had received distress calls from 17 South African men aged 20 to 39 who were trapped in Ukraine’s war-torn Donbas region.
When they left, the men were said to believe they were taking up lucrative employment contracts.
According to South African police, an affidavit from Sambudla’s half-sister Nkosazana Bonganini Zuma-Mncube alleged she and two others tricked the South Africans into fighting in the war by promising to provide them with security training in Russia.
The identities of the other two are not clear.
The affidavit also claims that eight of the 17 men were members of Zuma-Sambudla’s and Zuma-Mncube’s extended family.
South Africa is now working to try and return the men home.
Nkosinathi Nhleko, the national chairman of the MK party, announced Zuma-Sambudla’s resignation during a press briefing on Friday.
Watch that here if you want.
Russia has launched fresh attacks on Ukraine.
According to Ukraine’s air force, at least one Russian MiG-31K jet has taken off and it is said to be carrying a ballistic missile.
The air force also warns of “high-speed targets” heading for Kyiv and the Zhytomyr regions.
The air force adds that it’s “repelling” the missile threat and also warned of drone threats in the following regions:
The most recent wave of attacks has already claimed at least one life in the Kharkiv region (see our 17.48 post for more).
Meanwhile, Russia says it has shot down 13 Ukrainian drones this afternoon, according to the Kremlin’s defence ministry.
These were across the following regions, it said:
Alongside fighting on the frontline, espionage and intelligence gathering are important parts of both Ukraine’s and Russia’s efforts in the war.
Here’s a summary of some of the latest developments…
Ukraine jails family
In the Khmelnytskyi region, in western Ukraine, a former local official and her son and daughter have been sentenced to 15 years in prison today.
The family “systematically passed data on Ukrainian military facilities to the FSB”, according to the attorney general.
Posting on Telegram, the attorney general said…
“It was established that in February 2024, the woman entered into correspondence with a representative of the FSB. Knowing that he was an employee of the special services of the aggressor state, she agreed to cooperate for money and involved her adult children in it. From February to May 2024, they ‘simulated’ family trips to the Kamianets-Podilskyi district, collecting photos of checkpoints, air defence positions, and the movements of Ukrainian soldiers. In May, they were exposed immediately after another intelligence gathering operation – before passing it on to the enemy.”
Arrests made in Poland
Poland has arrested two Ukrainians and three Belarusians on charges of acting on behalf of foreign intelligence services.
Warsaw warns that Poland has been targeted with arson and cyber attacks as part of a “hybrid war” waged by Russia to undermine its support for Ukraine. Moscow denies the accusations.
The suspects, named as Ukrainians Oleksandr S and Sofia Ch, a minor, and Belarusians Viktoryia M, Anton M and Uladzimir U, were arrested on 25 and 26 November.
Their alleged activities included photographing and transmitting images of critical infrastructure and locations crucial to national security in 2024 and the early part of 2025, prosecutors said.
They were allegedly paid in cryptocurrencies, prosecutors added.
Russia updates list of ‘foreign agents’
And in Russia, according to state media there, the justice ministry has added engineer and politician Yevgeny Savostyanov and poet and publicist Vasilina Orlova to the register of “foreign agents”.
It also added the news site Doxa to the same register, it was reported.
Our defence analyst Professor Michael Clarke says that the resignation or removal of Andrii Yermak was “probably” inevitable.
Speaking to presenter Matt Barbet, he explains how Yermak was important in Zelenskyy’s rise to president, but that he was also never overly liked by many others in Ukraine’s parliament.
Watch his analysis…
We’ve just heard from the Kremlin about the resignation of Zelenskyy’s top aide, Andrii Yermak, for the first time.
Putin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claims that the development, linked to anti-corruption investigations in Ukraine, indicate a crisis in Kyiv.
He said:
“Events which are unfolding in Kiev indicate a profound political crisis, triggered by corruption scandals. I don’t think anyone can answer the question right now about what this will ultimately lead to. The consequences could be very different. All this corruption was and is connected to the money the Americans and Europeans provided for the war – that’s a fact. And accordingly, both in America and in European countries, they’re probably wondering what will happen to the Kiev regime tomorrow. That’s also obvious.”
Some Moscow figures, like Putin’s investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev and former president Dmitry Medvedev, have taken the resignation as an opportunity to attack Ukraine.
Peskov also gave a more specific timeframe for when Putin will meet with Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff next week.
“In the first half of the week. We will announce the date in due course,” Peskov told reporters.
In a Bloomberg report earlier this week, it was revealed that Witkoff had advised the Russians on how best to approach Trump over a potential peace in Ukraine.
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