Russian forces resumed drone attacks on Ukraine’s Kyiv region on Friday, damaging more than a dozen apartment buildings and storage facilities in the second straight day of aerial strikes, according to officials. The attacks killed one person and injured two others, while Kyiv authorities said air quality worsened in some areas and urged residents to stay indoors, keep windows closed and follow air raid warnings.
The fresh strikes came a day after prolonged air raid alerts in Kyiv effectively shut down the capital for 15 hours, Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said, severely disrupting civilian life and hurting the economy more than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Ukrainian officials also said Russia was targeting the power grid in what they described as an annual effort to “weaponise winter”, while authorities in the southern Kherson region warned of prolonged outages and advised residents to move if they could.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said the latest strikes damaged 14 warehouses, 16 private houses, three apartment buildings and 16 vehicles. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said a second drone hit one site after emergency teams had arrived, in what the military calls a “double tap” attack aimed at first responders. The strikes continued into daylight, and Tkachenko urged people to remain in safe places and pay attention to air raid alerts.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had struck a warehouse in the Kyiv region storing Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missiles and fuel for rocket boosters. Ukrainian officials did not immediately confirm the claim, and The Associated Press could not verify it. Recent strikes have damaged several warehouses in Kyiv and the surrounding region, including facilities storing books, food and other consumer goods. Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defence Council, said Russia was launching small numbers of fast-moving jet-powered drones in waves to paralyse the capital. “The goal is to exhaust air defences and the population,” he said on social media.
In the Kherson region on the Black Sea, where around 70 per cent of the territory is under Russian control, officials urged tens of thousands of residents to move to safer areas because power and heating cuts could last well into winter. Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, said in a social media post late on Thursday: “Kherson may be without electricity and heat not for hours or days, but for a long time. And we need to prepare for this now.” He said Russia had stepped up attacks on critical infrastructure, dropping 170 glide bombs on the region since July 1, more than in the first six months of the year. He also said Russia had launched more than 1,700 attack drones in the past two months, increasingly using jet-powered Shahed and Gerbera drones against critical infrastructure, while attacks by smaller drones had risen to 6,500 in the past week alone. Authorities, he said, would help people with evacuation, transport, resettlement and social support.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Economy is also revising down its GDP growth forecast in 2026 because of the impact of Russian attacks, which have restricted exports, especially grain through Black Sea ports. Economy Minister Oleksandr Kravchenko, quoted by Interfax-Ukraine, said growth earlier expected at around 1.3 per cent this year was now likely to come down to 0.8 per cent. He said the economy grew 0.6 per cent in the first quarter and recovered to post modest growth by the end of June, but further gains were being held back by damage to energy and logistics infrastructure and port blockades.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 164 drones overnight and did not mention any missiles, which are usually part of such attacks. In the northern Sumy region, a 61-year-old man was killed and seven others were injured in a Russian glide bomb strike, regional administration head Oleh Hryhorov said. At the same time, Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 512 Ukrainian drones overnight over 18 Russian regions, as well as over illegally annexed Crimea and the waters of the Black Sea.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck the Slavneft-YANOS refinery in Russia’s Yaroslavl region overnight, causing a fire at the site, which it said lies around 1,000 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. The military said the plant produces petrol, diesel, aviation fuel, fuel oil, lubricants and other petroleum products. In a separate Ukrainian drone attack on Friday morning in Yaroslavl, Governor Mikhail Yevrayev said one person was killed and 27 were injured, including 10 hurt when drone debris fell on a bus. He said unspecified industrial infrastructure, residential areas and retail facilities were hit. In Russia’s Moscow region, Governor Andrei Vorobyov said a drone struck a supermarket and damaged windows in a nearby outpatient clinic. In Sevastopol in Crimea, the Russian-installed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev said a five-storey residential building suffered heavy damage in a drone attack and four people were injured.
The latest exchange of attacks showed the conflict intensifying on both sides, with Kyiv facing fresh strikes on homes, warehouses and infrastructure, Kherson preparing for a difficult winter, and both Russia and Ukraine reporting damage and casualties from overnight drone operations.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
Source link
[ad_3]
