Drone and missile strikes lead to casualties in Ukraine and Russia
Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least three people overnight in Ukraine, while a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Krasnodar region resulted in two deaths, a day after a strike on a Ukrainian shopping center killed 16 people, reports BritPanorama.
In the latest attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that one person was killed and another wounded when ballistic missiles struck railway infrastructure in the capital, Kyiv. Additionally, local authorities reported one fatality in a Russian ballistic missile strike on the Kyiv region.
Russia’s Defense Ministry indicated that its forces targeted a locomotive depot. Moscow has intensified its ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, taking advantage of Ukraine’s ongoing shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defense interceptors, which are critical for countering such missile strikes.
Separately, Russian drone strikes killed one person overnight in a village within the Zaporizhzhia region, while President Zelenskyy noted that three individuals were injured in an attack involving a minibus in the regional capital, also named Zaporizhzhia.
In Russia’s Krasnodar region, authorities reported that two children were killed and two adults injured in a Ukrainian drone strike. These incidents followed a previous day’s attack in which Russian drones struck a shopping center in Kryvyi Rih, resulting in a rising death toll of 16, alongside nine people still unaccounted for and 130 others injured.
President Zelenskyy labelled the shopping center assault a double-tap strike, wherein an initial drone wave was followed by a second as first responders arrived. The fire caused by this attack spread across approximately 9,000 square meters (around 97,000 square feet), though it has since been extinguished.
Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Zelenskyy, has faced numerous attacks during the ongoing conflict, including a devastating incident in April 2025 that saw 20 fatalities, among them nine children. The pattern of large-scale Russian strikes has intensified this summer, with Friday’s attack occurring shortly after a significant missile and drone offensive on Kyiv that resulted in further casualties.
Kyiv has endured repeated assaults in recent weeks, with reports indicating that 17 people were killed in a strike just over two weeks ago, and another nine fatalities occurring two days prior. The UN recently noted that Kyiv was amongst the cities most affected in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 injured.
Concurrently, Ukraine has been extending its military operations into Russian territory, executing long-range drone strikes on oil facilities that have inflicted fuel shortages within Russia. This strategy has also included targeting the warehouses of Wildberries, the country’s largest online retailer.
Reports from the Russian news outlet Astra have revealed that a Ukrainian drone set fire to an oil refinery in the Samara region, with local officials confirming damage to an unspecified “industrial facility” and a logistics center associated with Ozon, a competitor of Wildberries.
As conflicts continue to escalate, the humanitarian implications remain dire, prompting further international scrutiny and concern.
