Russia and Ukraine exchange drone attacks, leaving nine dead

A Russian FPV drone slammed into a bus in central Nikopol, killing three people and injuring 12 others in one of the deadliest strikes reported in the frontline city in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region.

“Three people were killed and another 12 injured. The enemy attacked a city bus with an FPV drone right in downtown Nikopol. It was pulling up to the stop – there were people both on board and at the stop,” the head of the region’s military administration, Oleksandr Ganzha, wrote on social media.

Elsewhere, Russian shelling struck the southern Ukrainian town of Kherson, killing three “elderly” residents and wounding seven other people today, according to a regional official.

Officials on both sides also reported the deaths of two boys overnight in Russia and Ukraine, as the latest wave of cross-border attacks underscored the grinding conflict more than four years after Moscow sent troops into its neighbour.

Ukraine has intensified strikes on Russian energy infrastructure in recent weeks, seeking to curb Moscow’s oil export revenues at a time when the war in the Middle East has driven prices higher.

In Russia, a 12-year-old boy was among three people killed in the Vladimir region after a drone hit a residential building, the regional governor said.

“Two adults and their son were killed,” Vladimir region’s governor Alexander Avdeev said on Telegram, adding that the couple’s five-year-old daughter was in hospital with burns.

In Ukraine, an 11-year-old boy was killed and five other people were wounded after a house caught fire following a drone strike in the Dnipropetrovsk region, Mr Ganzha said.

Russia shot down 45 Ukrainian drones over the country overnight, according to the Russian defence ministry as quoted by media.

In Ukraine, “the enemy attacked four districts of the region more than ten times with drones,” Mr Ganzha said on Telegram.

Strikes in other areas triggered fires, damaged an administrative building and power lines, and wounded two men.

Kazakhstan says CPC oil exports via Black Sea stable

Kazakhstan’s energy ministry said oil shipments through the Caspian Pipeline Consortium remained stable after Russia’s military accused Ukraine of damaging the group’s loading facilities in the Black Sea.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said yesterday that Ukraine had targeted facilities at the maritime transhipment complex in the port of Novorossiysk overnight, damaging a mooring point for the CPC and setting fires at four oil product reservoirs.

“The work of our oil sector is stable and CPC exports continue to be stable,” Sungat Yesimkhanov, Kazakhstan’s deputy energy minister, told reporters.

The CPC terminal, south-west of Novorossiysk, handles 80% of Kazakhstan’s crude exports.

Supply volumes through the Tengiz-Novorosiysk pipeline rose last year to 70.5 million tonnes – or 1.53 million barrels per day – from 63m tonnes in 2024.

CPC shareholders include US companies Chevron and Exxon Mobil.