At least eight people were killed in an attack on tourist resorts in the partly Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed officials said on Saturday, while authorities in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region said a Russian drone strike killed three people. The developments came amid continuing cross-border attacks and fresh warnings of a possible larger Russian strike.
Two children were among those killed in the attack on the resorts, Kremlin-installed regional head Yevgeny Balitsky said, adding that 14 people were wounded. Ukraine did not immediately comment on the attack. In Sumy, regional head Oleh Hryhorov said three people were killed after a large fire broke out when a Russian drone struck a “civilian facility”. He said the victims were drivers for the private Ukrainian postal and courier service Nova Poshta.
Russia’s defence ministry said it had attacked a “storage and launch site” for Ukrainian drones in the Sumy region. In southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, a Russian drone attack late on Friday hit a shopping centre, causing a fire that spread over a 500-square-metre area and injured several people, regional head Ivan Fedorov said.
The violence followed a major Russian attack on Friday on a site hosting a defence industry event near Kyiv, which killed at least 10 people and wounded nearly 100 others. In his evening address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said intelligence assessments indicated that Russia was preparing missiles for a large attack, and said there were indications this could happen in the next 48 hours.
On Saturday, Romania’s defence ministry said its forces “safely shot down” a drone that breached its airspace in an “unpopulated area” near the Ukrainian border. President Nicuor Dan said in a Facebook post that the drone was “shot down by a Romanian pilot from an F-16 aircraft”. The interception came a day after another drone was shot down around Padina, northeast of Bucharest.
A series of drone incursions by Russia and Ukraine have affected Romania and other NATO members since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In June, a Ukrainian maritime drone exploded at the Black Sea port of Constanta, while three other sea drones exploded outside the port, with no injuries reported. In May, a Russian drone involved in an attack on Ukraine went astray and struck an apartment building in eastern Romania, injuring two people. The latest attacks on both sides, along with Romania’s interception, underlined the widening impact of the war.
With PTI Inputs
– Ends
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