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A Russian drone crashed into a high-rise building in eastern Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk overnight Saturday, killing two women and injuring more than a dozen others, Ukrainian authorities said.
A fire broke out in a nine-story building in Dnipropetrovsk, destroying several apartments, emergency services said. Emergency workers said they had recovered the bodies of two women, adding that two children were also among the injured.
The attack on Ukraine’s fourth-largest city was part of a large-scale Russian missile and drone incursion targeting energy infrastructure.
The Kremlin fired a barrage of 458 drones and 45 missiles, including 32 ballistic missiles, early Saturday morning, Ukraine’s air force said. The air force said Kiev shot down and neutralized 406 drones and nine missiles, adding that 25 locations were attacked.
Almost four years after the all-out invasion, Russia has bombarded Ukraine with drone and missile attacks almost daily, killing and wounding many civilians.
Moscow insists the only targets are those related to Kiev’s war effort, including military sites, energy facilities, and manufacturing sites that contribute to Ukraine’s defense.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said on Saturday that overnight airstrikes hit key military and energy facilities that provide vital supplies to the Ukrainian military.
Now in the fourth year of the war, Moscow and Kiev have exchanged attacks on each other’s energy targets on an almost daily basis, while U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to halt the war have had no impact on the battlefield.
Long-range drone attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure in Ukraine are aimed at depriving Russia of the oil export revenues it needs to continue the war. Kiev has previously pointed to the energy sector as the main source of funding for the Russian invasion.
Ukrainian officials said Russia wanted to cripple Ukraine’s power grid and deny civilians access to heat, electricity and water in order to “weaponize winter.”
Meanwhile, Russian forces repelled a “massive” night attack on energy facilities in the southern region of Volgograd. Ukrainian media reported that Kiev targeted it earlier this week and suffered severe damage.
Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov said on Saturday, two days after Ukraine claimed to have attacked the region’s main refinery with a long-range drone, the attack caused power outages in parts of the region’s northwest but caused no casualties. Kiev did not comment on the attack.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Saturday that the Russian military shot down 82 Ukrainian drones during the night, eight of them over the Volgograd region.
In the neighboring Saratov region, a Ukrainian drone strike blew out the windows of an apartment building and injured two people, local officials said.
In eastern Ukraine, the battle for the strategic city of Pokrovsk has reached a critical stage, with both Kiev and Moscow vying to convince US President Donald Trump that they can win on the battlefield.
Pokrovsk is located along the Eastern Front, part of Donetsk’s “fortress zone” in the eastern Donbass region, a string of heavily fortified cities essential to Ukraine’s regional defence. Control of the area could determine how other fighting in Donbass takes shape.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that the Russian military is on the verge of victory. He had previously called for Ukraine to cede the Donbas region, comprising Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk, in order to secure a peace agreement and end the fighting.
Additional sources of information • AP
