Six dead in latest Russian strikes on Ukraine

Fresh Russian strikes across Ukraine have killed at least six people, officials said today, with the deadliest attack hitting a residential building in the eastern city of Dnipro.

“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.

In Dnipro, four people were killed and 27 wounded in an overnight strike on an apartment block, according to Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, writing on Telegram.

“The Russians hit the same residential neighbourhood as the one targeted overnight,” Mr Ganzha said.

In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, a Russian drone struck a civilian minibus, killing one person and wounding four others, regional administration head Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.

Mr Zelensky said the unrelenting attacks on civilian areas underscored the need for a tougher response from Ukraine’s allies, particularly 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.

Zelensky calls for fresh EU sanctions

President Zelensky also called on the European Union to tighten sanctions on Russia even further.

His appeal came two days after EU leaders approved a long-delayed 20th sanctions package against Moscow, targeting the banking sector and imposing new curbs on exports of Russian oil.

The measures had been held up for months by Hungary’s Prime Minister, Viktor Orban, who was voted from power two weeks ago. The EU also signed off on a €90 billion loan for Ukraine aimed at bolstering its defences and covering state spending for the 2026-2027 period.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, civilians have been killed in Russian bombardments on an almost daily basis.

Over the past 24 hours, Ukrainian drone attacks wounded one person in Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, governor Alexander Khinshtein said today.

In neighbouring Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said a woman was killed and a man seriously wounded in a drone strike on a car, while another attack injured a man driving a tractor.

A Ukrainian drone also struck a multi-storey apartment building in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s fourth-largest city, the regional governor said today, marking the first such attack on the city since the conflict began.

There were no deaths, but several people suffered minor injuries and one woman was taken to hospital, Sverdlovsk region governor Denis Pasler wrote on the Telegram app.

Diplomatic efforts to halt Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II remain stalled, with US mediation attempts diverted by the outbreak of the Middle East war in February.