Russia

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia used North Korean missiles in overnight strikes on Zaporizhzhia that killed at least six people and injured 19 others, as both sides continued exchanging attacks across the front line. In a video address Monday evening, Zelensky said Russia has reached a point where it “cannot wage war without reinforcements from North Korea” for the first time. He warned that continued use of North Korean missiles and troops inside Ukraine and across Europe allows Pyongyang to identify and fix weaknesses in its weapons systems, calling this a growing danger that extends beyond the immediate conflict. Zaporizhzhia regional governor Ivan Fedorov shared images of burning vehicles and damaged buildings, saying Russian forces struck the city with missiles and guided bombs. He said the attack damaged industrial sites, infrastructure and non residential buildings across the city, in addition to causing casualties. The strikes followed a separate wave of Ukrainian drone attacks that killed at least 13 people, including a child, in Russia’s republic of Tatarstan, located more than 1,100 kilometers, or roughly 680 miles, from the Ukrainian border. Ukraine’s Armed Forces said the strikes hit the city’s Tanevo oil refinery, and verified social media footage showed large plumes of smoke and daytime flames at the site as air raid sirens sounded nearby. Officials said at least 75 people were injured in that attack, which ranks among the deadliest single strikes on Russian territory since the full scale invasion began in 2022. Uzbekistan’s consulate in Tatarstan said seven of those killed held Uzbek citizenship. In Kyiv, air raid sirens sounded twice overnight and explosions struck the outskirts of the capital, sparking fires and injuring one person. A strike also damaged a hospital in the city, though officials said staff and patients had already moved to shelter. Separate strikes on power substations in Kherson and Kharkiv caused outages in both cities. In Sumy, a Russian drone strike injured two women, aged 52 and 66, according to Sergiy Kryvosheenko, head of the Sumy City Military Administration. He said both were treated at the scene and that the strike also damaged civilian vehicles, warehouse buildings and other infrastructure. Ukrainian officials said Russia launched 120 drones overnight along with a mix of missile types, though for the first time authorities did not disclose how many missiles were fired or intercepted. The omission followed a statement from Ukraine’s Air Force on Monday asking media outlets to avoid sensationalized coverage or pessimistic framing regarding the country’s shortage of air defence interceptors. Ukraine also struck Russian territory overnight, hitting warehouses belonging to online retailer Wildberries in the Voronezh region in southern Russia. Wildberries, often described as Russia’s answer to Amazon, has faced repeated attacks on its facilities in recent weeks. The company has not confirmed the latest strike but said it evacuated facilities in the border region as a precaution. In July, Ukrainian drone strikes on several Wildberries warehouses disrupted operations for a large number of small and medium sized Russian businesses. Kyiv said at the time that it was targeting logistics hubs Russian buyers used to acquire military equipment, part of a broader effort to disrupt supply lines feeding the Russian military. In his Monday address, Zelensky also praised a separate strike on a Russian petrochemical plant in western Siberia, calling it a significant achievement for Ukraine’s military. He pledged additional long range Ukrainian strikes intended to convince Russia and the Russian public that peace remains necessary. This is not the first time Zelensky has raised alarm over North Korean military support for Russia. He said over the weekend that as many as 50,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to fight alongside Russian forces, part of a growing pattern of cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang that Ukrainian officials say is reshaping the battlefield and raising broader security concerns well beyond the immediate conflict.

Ukraine and Russia traded accusations of lethal attacks on Sunday, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying Moscow deliberately targeted global food security by striking the seaport at Odesa. Three people died and 37 sustained injuries in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv after a multi storey apartment block took a direct hit. Across the border, authorities in Russia’s Belgorod region reported that a Ukrainian drone attack killed five people and wounded 25 others. Odesa seaport takes major damage Zelenskiy said a strike had damaged Odesa’s seaport, a critical hub for Ukraine’s agricultural exports. Local authorities reported that dozens of drones and missiles struck the southern seaside city, wounding a dozen people in the process. “In this way, the Russians are at war with the world’s food security,” Zelenskiy said, framing the attack as part of a broader effort by Moscow to disrupt global grain supplies that flow through Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. The Ukrainian president said Russia also struck nine other regions across the country on Sunday, extending the assault well beyond Odesa alone. Russia has spent months bombarding Odesa in a sustained campaign aimed at cutting Ukraine off from the Black Sea and choking its export routes. Ihor, a 67 year old Odesa resident whose apartment narrowly avoided destruction in the latest strikes, said residents have grown accustomed to the danger. “Everyone who lives in Odesa knows that the most common target is around the port area,” he said. Ukraine strikes Russian oil tankers in response As Ukraine works to choke off the revenue Russia relies on to fund its war effort, Kyiv’s forces have repeatedly targeted Russian oil tankers and other cargo vessels moving through the Black Sea. Ukrainian forces claimed three additional strikes on such vessels on Sunday alone. Both countries have widened their campaigns against each other’s logistics networks in recent months. E-commerce warehouses on both sides of the border and Ukrainian petrol stations have come under sustained attack throughout the summer. Ukraine’s state energy company Naftogaz reported a significant rise in attacks on its facilities over the past three days, including strikes on oil extraction sites overnight. Ukraine’s energy ministry said Russian forces also struck power facilities in the Odesa region, cutting electricity to a substantial share of the port city’s residents overnight. Power had already been restored to 90,000 consumers by Sunday, the ministry said. Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed striking fuel storage facilities in the ports of Odesa and nearby Chornomorsk, saying the sites were being used to support the Ukrainian military. Pope Leo renews call for peace At the Vatican, Pope Leo used his Sunday address to renew calls for an end to the war, now in its fourth and a half year. Speaking before worshippers gathered for the Angelus prayer, the pontiff said tragic incidents are multiplying across the conflict, leading to a growing number of civilian casualties, including children. The renewed papal appeal comes as both Russia and Ukraine show little sign of scaling back their attacks, with strikes on energy infrastructure, ports and logistics networks continuing to intensify on both sides as the war grinds into its fifth year without a resolution in sight.

Russia and Ukraine launched a fresh wave of overnight strikes against each other on Saturday, leaving three people dead and ten injured across multiple regions on both sides of the border, according to officials from both countries. Kyiv suburb bears the brunt of Russian strikes Three people died and three others suffered injuries when Russian forces struck three separate locations in the Brovary district on the outskirts of Kyiv, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, in a statement posted on Telegram. Falling debris from the strikes damaged a private residential building along with several outbuildings and parked cars, while a fire broke out at a nonresidential structure in the area, Tkachenko said. Emergency crews rushed to the scene to contain the damage and assist residents. “Rescuers and all necessary services are working on the ground,” Tkachenko said. “The elimination of the consequences is ongoing.” Russia’s Defence Ministry confirmed carrying out the strike on the Ukrainian capital, stating on Telegram that its forces had targeted a military-industrial facility along with a fuel and lubricants depot located in Kyiv. The ministry additionally claimed that two dry cargo ships, which it alleged were transporting weapons and military equipment bound for Ukrainian ports, came under attack from drones while passing through waters south and east of the port city of Odesa. Russian regions report drone damage and injuries On the Russian side, five people sustained injuries and a fire erupted at the Ilsky Oil Refinery in the Krasnodar region after debris from a downed drone fell onto the facility, regional authorities reported. The Krasnodar Operational Headquarters said on Telegram that the injured were receiving all necessary medical care while emergency and special services worked at the scene. Separately, two people were injured when a drone crashed in the Russian city of Zadonsk, according to Lipetsk Governor Igor Artamonov, who posted details of the incident on Telegram. The crash damaged four private homes, a vehicle and a power line, Artamonov said, adding that power workers had already begun restoration efforts in the affected area. In the Samara region further east, one of the area’s industrial enterprises came under attack from a Ukrainian drone, said regional Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev in a post on the Russian social media platform Max. Fedorishchev said authorities were currently working to address the aftermath of the strike but did not immediately provide further details on the extent of the damage. Moscow claims mass drone interception Russia’s Defence Ministry also announced that its air defence systems had shot down and destroyed 397 Ukrainian drones over the course of the strikes, with the interceptions occurring over Russian territory, annexed Crimea and the Sea of Azov. Independent verification of the claims made by both Moscow and Kyiv remains difficult given the ongoing conflict, and neither side’s figures on damage, casualties or intercepted drones could be confirmed through independent sources. Latest strikes reflect continuing pattern of cross-border attacks The overnight exchange adds to a long running pattern of tit-for-tat strikes between the two countries, with Ukraine frequently targeting Russian energy infrastructure, including refineries deep inside Russian territory, while Russia continues to strike Ukrainian cities and industrial sites. Both countries have increasingly relied on long-range drones to strike targets far from the front line, a tactic that has expanded the geographic scope of the war well beyond the immediate combat zones in eastern and southern Ukraine. The strikes come as diplomatic efforts to end the war have shown little sign of producing a breakthrough, with both Moscow and Kyiv continuing large-scale military operations even as international mediators push for a negotiated settlement. Attacks on energy facilities, in particular, have become a recurring feature of the conflict, with both sides accusing the other of deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and disrupting fuel supplies ahead of the winter months. As the war grinds on, Saturday’s strikes underscore the continued volatility along multiple fronts, from Kyiv’s outskirts to refineries deep inside Russian territory, with civilians on both sides bearing the brunt of the ongoing hostilities.