Massive Missile Barrage Shakes Ukrainian Capital as Jewish Community Takes Shelter
Kyiv’s wartime reality struck once again with full force as residents of the Ukrainian capital endured one of the most intense nights in recent months following a large-scale combined Russian attack • Read More, Photos
Kyiv’s wartime reality struck once again with full force as residents of the Ukrainian capital endured one of the most intense nights in recent months following a large-scale combined Russian attack.
For 12 consecutive hours—from 7:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m.—hundreds of drones and missiles targeted the city, with continuous explosions shaking neighborhoods across Kyiv as air defense systems worked throughout the night.
As part of emergency preparations, authorities shut down all gas stations across the capital to reduce the risk of secondary explosions in the event of direct strikes.
Thousands of residents fled their homes in the middle of the night, seeking shelter deep inside Kyiv’s underground metro stations.
“The entire city was shaking. The explosions didn’t stop for a moment, and it was simply impossible to sleep,” Rabbi Simcha Levenhartz, one of the Rebbe’s Shluchim in Kyiv, told Chabadinfo on Thursday morning.
For dozens of families from the city’s Simcha Jewish Community, led by Rabbi Mordechai Levenhartz, the night marked a dramatic return to reality. Just one day earlier, they had returned to Kyiv after spending nine days in the peaceful Carpathian Mountains at a special respite camp organized by the JRNU Chabad network in Ukraine.
The camp was designed to give families and children a temporary escape from the ongoing trauma of the war. Instead, they returned directly into one of the most intense air raid alerts the city has experienced in recent months.
Many spent the entire night sheltering underground, including in the community’s own bomb shelter.
Despite the sleepless night and constant danger, synagogues across Kyiv were filled Thursday morning as hundreds of Jews gathered for Shacharis on the Fast of the Seventeenth of Tammuz, arriving exhausted but determined.
Meanwhile, JRNU’s humanitarian relief network remained fully operational. Hot meals were distributed through Jewish community centers, while volunteers delivered food directly to the homes of elderly, ill, and homebound residents who were unable to leave their homes under the ongoing threat of missile attacks.
Photos: Ukrainian State Emergency Service.
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