Russian drone and missile strikes across Ukraine killed at least seven people overnight, including five in the city of Dnipro, Ukrainian local authorities have said.
Reports say that at least 34 people have been injured in the strikes, which lasted “practically all night”, according to the Dnipropetrovsk regional head, Oleksandr Hanzha. The bodies of four people were found in the ruins of a house destroyed in the attacks, and workers continued to search for bodies on Saturday morning.
“The Russians have been hitting Dnipro and other cities and communities practically all night,” Hanzha wrote on Telegram. Fires reportedly broke out across the city as a result of the strikes, and partly destroyed several blocks of flats, businesses and a private house.
Separately, another person was killed in a Russian strike in the region on Saturday afternoon, according to Hanzha, in the same residential area hit by the earlier attacks. Odesa and Kharkiv were also targeted by drones, according to Ukraine, where at least three people were injured.
Authorities in the area said they repelled most of the more than 600 Russian drones, which appears to have been the largest attack in several days. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on social media: “The Russians’ tactics have not changed: strike drones, cruise missiles and a significant amount of ballistics.
“Most of the targets are ordinary infrastructure in cities. Residential buildings, energy, and enterprises have been damaged.”
Ukraine carried out some of its longest-distance drone strikes deep inside Russian territory. In Russia, a woman was killed and a man seriously injured by a drone strike in the border region of Belgorod.
The overnight attacks came after a prisoner swap on Friday, in which Russia and Ukraine exchanged 193 service members. Periodic prisoner exchanges were one of the conditions of the US-brokered negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv. The talks have delivered no progress on key issues, preventing an end to Russia’s invasion.