KYIV, (Ukraine): Strikes killed 19 people in Russia and Ukraine, authorities said Sunday, as waves of drones and missiles pummelled civilian infrastructure on both sides.
With fighting at the front at a near standstill and talks frozen, the warring countries have significantly stepped up long-range attacks deep behind each other’s lines, pushing the civilian death toll to its highest levels since the war’s first months in 2022.
In Russia, swarms of Ukrainian drones killed five people in a residential area of the southern Rostov region, regional governor Yuri Slusar said.
Three more people were killed in the Belgorod, Kursk and Moscow regions, along with four others in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.
Moscow’s regional governor Andrey Vorobyov described the assault as “one of the most massive drone attacks in recent memory”. Russia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted 822 drones across the country overnight.
In Ukraine, a barrage of Russian drones and missiles killed two people and wounded 14 at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown.
The plant, one of Ukraine’s biggest steel producers, said it partially halted operations after the strike damaged its core production facilities.
Another strike hit Kryvyi Rih on Sunday evening, killing one person.
Strikes also hit other regions, killing two people in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, one in the border region of Sumy and another in Donetsk in the east.