Missile and drone strikes kill eight in Russia and Ukraine
May 25 (Reuters) – Missile and drone attacks on Russian and Ukrainian territory in the past 24 hours killed at least eight people and damaged energy infrastructure in Russia’s Belgorod region, local officials on both sides said on Monday.
The attacks follow one of Russia’s heaviest bombardments of Kiev since the start of the four-year war, after Moscow vowed to retaliate for what it described as a deliberate drone attack on a student dormitory in the Russian-controlled Luhansk region on Saturday. The Ukrainian military rejected Russia’s accusations and said it had hit an elite drone command unit in the region.
Four people, including two teenagers, have since been killed in the Russian-controlled eastern Ukrainian town of Horlivka, Mayor Ivan Prikhodko said on Telegram on Monday, blaming Ukraine’s armed aggression.
According to the statement of local officials on Telegram, one person died and another was injured in a missile and drone attack in the Belgorod region of Russia, which also cut off electricity and water supplies.
ATTACKS ACROSS UKRAINE
Two people were killed and 16 people were injured in Russian bombardment, missile and drone attacks on the southern Kherson region in Ukraine in the last 24 hours, regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said in Telegram on Monday.
In another attack near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, 1 person died and 2 people were injured. The regional governor said that according to initial information, Russia launched a missile attack on the town of Derkhachi, just outside the city.
Eight more people, including a six-year-old boy, were injured in Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhia regions in southeastern Ukraine, local officials said in separate Telegram posts. Emergency services in Dnipropetrovsk said a nine-storey apartment building in the town of Pavlohrad had been hit by a drone strike and released photos of thick, black smoke rising from the building.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports. Russia and Ukraine have denied deliberately targeting civilians since Russia invaded its neighbor in February 2022.
US mediation efforts have so far failed to end the war. Both sides have accused each other of trying to escalate the conflict, and Ukraine plans to send reinforcements to its northern regions to counter Russian plans for a new offensive.
On Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said diplomatic efforts to end the conflict should be revived.
(Reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova in Tokyo and Alessandra Prentice in London; Additional reporting by Anna Pruchnicka in Kiev, Editing by Kate Mayberry and Ros Russell)
