Russian strikes on Kyiv killed at least seven people and wounded dozens more on Friday, while a separate wave of attacks over the past month has forced Ukraine’s largest steelmaker to shut down entirely, according to The Business Standard.
Kyiv attack leaves seven dead
The strikes on the Ukrainian capital hit a high-rise residential building, an office block and a parking area, killing seven people including a 14-year-old boy. Ukrainian officials said between 58 and 59 people were injured in the attack, which used a mix of Shahed-type drones and jet-powered weapons.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the strikes as “absolutely savage and sickening” and called for a tougher international response. Speaking days later, he said Russia was “escalating every single day” and that “the world must choose stronger responses,” Al Jazeera reported.
Steel giant forced to close
The human toll in Kyiv came alongside a slower-moving blow to Ukraine’s industrial base. ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, the country’s biggest steel producer, announced it can no longer safely operate after four separate strikes hit the plant over five weeks, killing five workers.
The Kryvyi Rih complex produced roughly 1.7 million metric tons of steel last year and ran iron ore mines with a 7.6 million ton capacity. It employed about 12,500 workers plus another 3,500 contractors, making it one of the largest single employers left in government-controlled Ukraine.
“We are no longer able to safely operate,” the company’s chief executive said, adding that ArcelorMittal intends to preserve what remains of the site’s infrastructure so it can eventually restart once conditions allow. The company is bracing for an impairment charge of roughly $1 billion tied to the closure.
A widening campaign against industry and energy
The steelmaker’s shutdown fits a pattern that has intensified through September. A Financial Times analysis cited by Ukrainska Pravda found that Russian strikes had already knocked out around 90 percent of the country’s steel production capacity even before the Kryvyi Rih closure was announced.
Steel exports once made up close to 15 percent of Ukraine’s total export earnings, so losing the sector’s largest player deepens pressure on a wartime budget already strained by falling tax revenue. Kyiv has responded in kind, striking Russian oil refineries and defense-linked industrial sites, including facilities in the Krasnodar region and at Novoshakhtinsk.
Beyond Kyiv, this week’s violence spread across a wide front. Two women were killed in Zaporizhzhia after drone and missile strikes hit a home, two more people died in Sumy, and a cargo vessel and logistics hub were struck in the Black Sea port of Odesa. A United Nations tally cited by The Business Standard recorded at least 200 civilian deaths in Ukraine from similar attacks in September alone.
Diplomacy continues despite the escalation
The strikes landed even as diplomatic efforts around a possible ceasefire continue. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his US counterpart Marco Rubio for a fifth time on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly this week, part of a broader push Wire Examiner has covered in detail. Lavrov accused European governments of trying to “thwart peace talks” that Washington has pushed for, while Zelenskyy used his own UN address to press allies for firmer backing.
The attacks also come only weeks after Ukraine launched one of its largest drone barrages of the war against Moscow, a strike Wire Examiner reported on at the time. Both sides have shown little sign of slowing strikes on infrastructure even as negotiators keep talking, underscoring how far apart the battlefield and the diplomatic track remain.
For now, ArcelorMittal’s closure leaves thousands of workers without jobs in a city already under near-constant bombardment, and it hands Moscow a tangible economic win even as ceasefire talks continue in the background.
