KYIV (Reuters) -At least 14 people were killed and 37 wounded, including five children, in Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine’s eastern city of Dobropillia and a settlement in Kharkiv region overnight, the Ukrainian Interior Ministry said on Saturday.
Russian forces attacked Dobropillia with ballistic missiles, multiple rockets, and drones, causing damage to eight multi-storey buildings and 30 vehicles, according to the ministry. The assault resulted in the deaths of 11 people, including five children, and left 30 others wounded.
The ministry also reported that three civilians were killed and seven wounded in a separate drone attack on the Kharkiv region in the northeast.
“Such strikes show that Russia’s objectives have not changed. Therefore, it is crucial to continue to do our best to protect lives, strengthen our air defences, and increase sanctions against Russia. Everything that helps Putin finance the war must collapse,” President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Facebook.
On Friday, Russian forces damaged Ukrainian energy and gas infrastructure in their first major missile attack since the U.S. paused intelligence sharing with Ukraine, piling pressure on Kyiv as President Donald Trump seeks a swift end to the war.
The pause in U.S. military aid and intelligence may undermine Ukraine’s air defences as it runs low on advanced missiles and struggles to track attacks as effectively, military analysts say.
Dobropillia, home to about 28,000 people before the war, is in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, 22 kilometres (13.67 miles) from the front line north of the key hub of Pokrovsk, which the Russian troops have been attacking for weeks.
FIGHTING CONTINUES
Amid U.S. efforts to sit Kyiv and Moscow at the negotiating table, the sides continue to engage in active hostilities in an attempt to gain an advantage.
A tank at Surgutneftegaz’s Kirishi oil refinery, one of Russia’s largest, was damaged by falling debris during a major Ukrainian overnight drone attack, local official said.
Russian forces, for their part, have in recent weeks stepped up efforts to eject Ukrainian troops from Kursk, when Kyiv’s forces staged a lightning incursion over the border and seized a swath of Russian territory in last August.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Saturday its troops retook three villages in the Kursk region from Ukrainian forces.
Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield report.
(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk; additional reporting by Lucy Papachristou and Guy Faulconbridge, Editing by Kim Coghill and Louise Heavens)
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