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Johannesburg – Russian missile and drone attacks on the cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine have killed eight people and injured dozens, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday.
A missile attack destroyed a private business in Dnipro, killing five people and injuring 29, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha and Ukrainian emergency services told Telegram.
Ukrainian police said that the operation to rescue the poor following the attack is still ongoing.
“Russia has launched an attack on Dnipro, targeting infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told X, adding that rescue operations were ongoing.
“It is important that Europe works as much as possible to improve its anti-ballistic defense – its systems and missiles.”
A separate Russian drone attack on a bus in Zaporizhzhia killed two men and a woman and injured seven others, including a seven-year-old boy, regional prosecutors said.
Ukrainian airstrikes in Russian-controlled Crimea prompted officials to declare a state of emergency. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 660 Ukrainian planes during a massive nighttime raid on the peninsula and 12 other locations on June 25. Moscow illegally seized the region from Ukraine in 2014 before eventually invading Ukraine. But for locals who live there now, the attack is causing fuel restrictions and power outages during what should be a critical period for the area’s tourism sector.
There was no comment from Russia about the attack. Moscow’s war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, has killed tens of thousands. Ukraine has also attacked targeted communities during the invasion of Russia or territories occupied by Russia, although on a much smaller scale.
Both sides deny targeting civilians.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia has not changed its position on the conditions necessary for a peace deal in Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin said by 2024 that Kyiv’s forces had to withdraw from four regions Moscow claims, and made public its plans to join NATO.
Putin said in a televised interview over the weekend that Russia will move forward with its goal of the war to fully control these four regions, rejecting what they say is a new proposal by Ukraine to intensify the war in the war that has been going on for more than four years.
Putin said in the same interview that Ukraine had proposed a halt to long-term strikes and that fighting should be limited to four regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – that Russia claims as its own, something Kyiv rejects as an illegal land grab.
Putin admitted on Sunday that fuel supply problems had caused shortages in Russia’s regions and that a task force was working to ensure an adequate supply across the country.
Ukraine has stepped up medium- and long-range attacks on industrial targets in Russia and Russian-controlled areas inside Ukraine, with a particular focus on the oil sector.
