Russian strikes across Ukraine killed at least six people, officials said Saturday, most of them in an attack on a residential building in the eastern city of Dnipro.
The strikes extended nearly daily attacks Russia has launched since starting its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with many civilians being killed.
“The Russians’ tactics remain unchanged: attack drones, cruise missiles and a significant amount of ballistic missiles,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
“Most of the targets are ordinary infrastructure in cities. Residential buildings, energy facilities and businesses have been damaged,” he said.
Four people were killed and 27 wounded in one overnight strike on an apartment block in Dnipro, Oleksandr Ganzha, head of Drinpropetrovsk’s regional military administration said on Telegram.
A later strike on another apartment building in the city, killed one person and wounded seven, he said.
“The Russians hit the same residential neighbourhood as the one targeted overnight,” Ganzha said.
Dnipro’s deputy mayor was “nearly killed” in one of the strikes, said the mayor, Borys Filatov.
– ‘Massive strike’ –
In the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, one person was killed and four wounded by a Russian drone strike on a civilian minibus, the head of the region’s administration, Ivan Fedorov, said on Telegram.
The Russian defence ministry said it had “launched a massive strike” on Ukrainian military targets over the past 24 hours. Moscow denies targeting civilians throughout the four-year war.
Following the barrage, a drone crashed in Romania, a NATO and EU country that borders Ukraine, local authorities said, adding that they had to evacuate over 200 people.
Zelensky said the incessant Russian strikes on civilian targets required a strong response from Ukraine’s allies, especially in Europe.
“Every such strike should serve as a reminder to our partners that the situation requires immediate and firm action, and the rapid strengthening of our air defence,” he said.
– EU sanctions –
He urged the European Union to impose even more sanctions on Russia.
The plea came two days after EU leaders approved a long-stalled 20th sanctions round against Russia that target the banking sector and add new restrictions on exports of Russian oil.
That package had been blocked for months by Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who was voted from power two weeks ago. The EU also approved a 90-billion-euro ($105 billion) loan to Ukraine intended to strengthen its defences and cover state expenditures for the 2026–2027 period.
In recent months, Kyiv has stepped up its own retaliatory attacks on Russia, hitting civilians and energy infrastructure among other targets.
Ukrainian drone attacks over the past 24 hours injured one person in Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, governor Alexander Khinshtein announced Saturday on Russia’s state-sponsored messenger app Max.
The governor for Russia’s neighbouring Belgorod region, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said a woman was killed and a man seriously wounded in a drone attack on a car, and a man driving a tractor was wounded in another strike.
A rare Ukrainian drone strike hit an apartment high-rise in Yekaterinburg, a large industrial city in Russia’s heartland more than a thousand miles away from Ukraine, said local governor Denis Pasler. No one was seriously injured in the attack, he added.
On the front line in Ukraine, the Russian army claimed to capture the village of Bochkove in the Kharkiv region.
Diplomatic efforts to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II are at a standstill with US mediation efforts diverted by the outbreak of the Middle East war in February.