Russia just bombed Kyiv twice in one day and Putin has grown his army again

So here's why this matters. This is the second wave of strikes on Kyiv in under a day. That gap is the story.

A day earlier, a day-long assault hit the capital, morning to evening. A few hours later, missiles were already inbound again.

Ukraine's Air Force says Russia fired 124 drones and missiles at Kyiv in that assault. 86 of them were jet-powered. Ukrainian forces say they destroyed or suppressed 86 targets. A separate wire report gives a different number, a nationwide one: 120 drones fired at Ukraine, 90 jet-powered, 57 per cent intercepted. That might just be a Kyiv count against a nationwide count, not a contradiction. Either way, neither number is the single confirmed total.

So what actually got hit? Ukraine's National Academy of Sciences building, in central Kyiv. A fire broke out. Two people were killed there. One body was recovered later, during the rescue.

A Dobrobut medical building, seven storeys, was hit too. Seven people were hurt, six of them staff. The Darnytsia pharmaceutical plant was struck. And reports name five districts hit across the city: Shevchenkivskyi, Obolonskyi, Solomianskyi, Darnytskyi and Podilskyi.

Now the toll from that assault, because the figures don't all match. Vitali Klitschko, Kyiv's mayor, says two killed and 26 injured across the city, including three children. Eight were hospitalised, one seriously. A separate wire report has Klitschko giving a lower number, 24 injured citywide, next to a different, nationwide toll from Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's President, of nine killed and more than 80 injured across the whole country. And a third report quotes an earlier Zelenskyy account of just one woman killed and six injured, specifically at the Academy of Sciences.

Three different figures. All overlapping. None of them is the confirmed count.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the strikes and called for tougher pressure on Russia. He says quote "every Russian terrorist attack results in casualties that could have been prevented had the pressure on Russia finally become total".

And there's more behind this. Vladimir Putin, Russia's President, signed a decree the day before this attack. It sets Russia's armed forces at 2.44 million people, including 1.55 million active-duty troops. That's the fourth increase this year. It's 15,500 higher than the ceiling set at the start of August. Kyiv Post says it couldn't independently verify those Russian figures. They come from Russia's state news agency, TASS.

So Kyiv just took one of its heaviest bombardments in months. And before anyone had even finished counting the damage, the missiles were flying again.

Here's what we still don't know. The toll from this new attack. The damage from this new attack. Whether it's been intercepted. Whether any of Kyiv's air defences got worn down overnight. And the real, single confirmed toll from the assault before it.