Russia carried out a wave of airstrikes on Ukraine overnight, killing two people at a steel plant, and Kyiv launched a heavy drone attack on the Moscow region that killed one person and set ablaze a warehouse used by Russia’s leading e-commerce retailer.
Romania, which borders Ukraine, said an F-18 fighter on a NATO air policing mission had shot down a drone that breached its airspace during the latest attacks. It did not specify the origin of the drone, which entered from Moldova, but a NATO spokesperson said it appeared to be Russian.
Russia struck Ukraine’s largest grain export port on the River Danube near the Romanian border last week after stepping up attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks. Ukraine has also intensified attacks on Russian targets including oil refineries, and both sides have struck commercial vessels in the Black Sea.
In the latest attacks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian forces struck Ukraine’s biggest steel plant overnight in the industrial city of Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s home town.
At least two people were killed and 14 injured, Ukrainian officials said.
“As a result of the attack, key production facilities in the power generation and blast furnace sectors have been damaged, and the plant’s production processes have been partially halted,” ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih (MT.LU), said on Telegram.
A Russian missile strike on Kyiv early on Sunday caused fires in at least two districts of the capital, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. The city’s military administration said three people were injured.
Tymur Tkachenko, the Kyiv region’s governor, said three others, including a child, were injured in drone attacks across the region.
DRONE SHOT DOWN OVER ROMANIA
Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had downed 822 Ukrainian drones throughout the country in the latest attacks.
Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said an 83-year-old man had been killed in what he described as one of the largest Ukrainian drone attacks on the Moscow region since the start of the conflict.
He said several people were also injured in the Podolsk area, and that a warehouse belonging to Russia’s largest online retailer, Wildberries, had been struck.
Video filmed by Reuters after the strike on Wildberries’ Koledino warehouse showed a large plume of smoke over the site, about 45 km (28 miles) south of Moscow.