Russian drones struck Ukrainian cities in a fresh wave of daytime attacks, killing at least one person and injuring many others, Ukrainian authorities said.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, a drone hit a shopping centre, killing one person and wounding others, local prosecutors reported.
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Regional governor Oleg Synegoubov shared photographs on Telegram showing the blackened interior of a department store, where sections of the roof and a wall had been ripped open.
Authorities in the southern cities of Kherson and Odesa also reported casualties. Three people were injured in Kherson when a strike hit a local bus, while another three were wounded in Odesa.
Numerous passengers were also trapped in Kyiv’s metro system because trains do not cross the Dnipro River during air raids.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said four people had been injured, with two taken to hospital. In a separate statement, he said a drone had crashed onto a roadway.
Videos posted on social media showed towering clouds of smoke rising from one of the locations hit during the morning assault.
Russia is striking more targets such as the warehouse in Kyiv’s Boryspil district during daylight hours
Russia also launched its customary overnight strikes against targets across Ukraine.
“The enemy has been attacking the Kyiv region all night with strike drones and ballistic missiles,” said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv region. He said warehouses had been among the targets.
In the northeastern Sumy region, Russian attacks killed one person and wounded four others, local officials said.
“The enemy attacked civilian transportation in broad daylight while people were simply going about their business,” said Yaroslav Shanko, head of the Kherson city administration.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky again urged Kyiv’s allies to provide additional ballistic-missile defence systems to help repel the attacks.
Ukraine’s air force said this morning that its forces had intercepted seven ballistic missiles, one anti-ship cruise missile and nearly 90% of the drones launched in the assault.
The regional governor said one person had been killed and two others injured when a shopping centre in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, was attacked.
In Kyiv, falling debris damaged a school and shattered windows at a healthcare facility in at least two districts, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. He added that two people had been injured in the daytime strike.
Outside the capital, strikes damaged warehouses and private homes, injuring two people, according to the regional governor.
Reuters TV footage showed a large column of smoke rising above a warehouse in the region. In central Poltava, air strikes hit industrial sites and an energy facility, cutting electricity to seven settlements, the regional governor said.
Three people were wounded in President Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih after a missile struck an industrial facility in the steel-and-mining hub. In the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, three more people were injured when strikes hit an unspecified production facility.
Emergency responders work at the site of a Russian drone strike in Kyiv’s Boryspil district
Officials said the southern Odesa region endured an hours-long assault that damaged infrastructure, an educational facility and a multi-storey building. Three people were wounded.
Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had struck steelworks in Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia, an oil refinery in the Poltava region, logistics centres around Kyiv and three ports in the Odesa region.
Six Russian drones also entered the airspace of neighbouring Moldova, local authorities said, prompting President Maia Sandu to “strongly condemn this intimidation”.
One of the drones was later discovered on Moldovan territory.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has continued to launch hundreds of long-range drones against targets in Russia on an almost nightly basis.
Russian officials said air defences had shot down 267 Ukrainian drones over 14 Russian regions, Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.
After destroying vast warehouses operated in recent months by Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, Ukrainian drones are now targeting Ozon, the country’s second-largest e-commerce company.
Ozon said its logistics facilities in Orenburg and Ufa had come under attack, although neither site caught fire.
Russia threatens Britain over missile support for Ukraine
Britain and the UK have agreed to provide blueprints for the Storm Shadow missile to Ukraine
A Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman has warned that Moscow could attack British military targets inside and outside Ukraine in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russia using British-supplied missiles.
Maria Zakharova urged Britain to abandon what she described as the UK’s hostile policy on Ukraine, warning that it risked pushing the conflict into an entirely new phase.
At the same Moscow news briefing, she said Britain and France were “playing with fire” by supplying sensitive missile technology to Ukraine.
Ms Zakharova said London was “one step away” from becoming legally complicit in what she called “terrorism” against Russian civilians, warning of “catastrophic consequences” unless Britain changed course.
“We have repeatedly warned that any British military installations and equipment in Ukraine and beyond its borders could be targeted in response to Ukrainian strikes on Russian territory carried out using British weapons,” she said.
“We propose that the British leadership once again carefully analyse the situation and immediately, in the most resolute and unequivocal manner, abandon the hostile, aggressive line, which can only … create the risk of the conflict escalating to an entirely new level.”
Britain announced on Monday that it would give Kyiv access to classified technology so Ukraine could begin producing Storm Shadow long-range cruise missiles capable of striking deep inside Russia.
France has already agreed to license the technology for the European missile.
Russian forces 4km from Sloviansk, army chief claims
‘The offensive is proceeding at an unabated pace on all fronts’ – Valery Gerasimov (L) said
Russia’s army chief, Valery Gerasimov, has visited Moscow’s forces on the Ukrainian front, according to the defence ministry, and pledged to capture more towns and villages in the east.
In video released by the ministry, Mr Gerasimov said Russian troops were moving towards the eastern Ukrainian town of Sloviansk and praised what he called their “successes”.
“The offensive is proceeding at an unabated pace on all fronts,” he said. “There are four kilometres left to the eastern suburbs of Sloviansk.” AFP could not independently verify the claim.
Russia has maintained its maximalist demand that Ukraine surrender the remaining parts of the east, while the Kremlin has ordered its forces to seize the entire Donetsk region.
Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk are the last major centres in Donetsk still controlled by Ukraine. Both form part of the so-called fortress belt, a series of heavily fortified defensive lines built by Kyiv since 2014.
Sloviansk has stood as a symbol of Ukrainian resistance since 2014, when pro-Russian separatists held the city for about three months before Ukrainian forces recaptured it.
