NATO scrambles jets as Russia's new fast drones burn Kyiv science academy and kill at least ten

From the Newshound archive · first published 29 September 2026.

A direct hit on Kyiv's National Academy of Sciences sent the 19th-century building up in flames, with staff forced to escape from upper-floor windows as fire ripped through the historic structure. The academy's president, Anatoliy Zagorodny, rejected any military rationale for the strike: "We are not connected with the military. This is an attack on science. It is terrorism." Ukraine's foreign minister Andrii Sybiha cautioned that each strike left unanswered only encourages Russia to go further.

NATO scrambled two Spanish F-18s after Romanian radar picked up an unidentified aerial target close to the Ukrainian border; suspected drone fragments were subsequently recovered from Romanian farmland.

Russia's new jet-powered drones are outpacing Ukraine's air defences, reaching speeds and altitudes that defeat ground-based systems, while Patriot interceptor stocks have been critically depleted in part because of the Iran war.

A separate Russian drone strike on a Dnipro business centre killed three more people, as Russia broadens its campaign beyond energy infrastructure to target data centres and telecoms networks.