Kyiv, Oct 10:
Russian strikes killed two people and wounded several others across Ukraine on Friday, as escalating bombardments over three days left more than 50 people dead, according to Ukrainian officials.
One man was killed and five people were wounded in attacks on residential areas in the Zaporizhzhia region, including a child, said regional military administration head Mykhailo Semikin. Another man was killed in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, regional head Svitlana Onyshchuk reported.
Russian forces also attacked warehouse facilities in the Bucha district of the Kyiv region, wounding three people, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said. Rescuers were searching for a woman who might still be trapped beneath the rubble.
The latest attacks followed a Russian guided-bomb strike near public buses in eastern Ukraine on Thursday that killed 30 people. A missile attack on the northern town of Pryluky a day earlier killed 22 people, including five children. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has warned that Russian attacks could intensify as winter approaches, threatening energy systems and other infrastructure vital to the country’s economy.
Zelenskyy has appealed to NATO countries for additional air-defence support, including anti-ballistic capabilities, ammunition for combat aircraft and investments in interceptors. Ukraine faces difficulties countering Russian ballistic missiles without sufficient ammunition for its US-made Patriot air-defence systems and is developing new interceptors to counter advanced drones.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian drone attacks struck Russian territory. Technology company Yandex said a data centre in the Kaluga region had suffered damage, with several modules completely disabled. It was the second attack on a Yandex data centre in two days, following a strike that disrupted a facility in the Ryazan region. Kaluga Governor Vladislav Shapsha said nine people were wounded in drone attacks, while a separate Ukrainian drone strike sparked a fire at a factory in Redkino, in the Tver region. No casualties were reported there.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences had shot down 505 Ukrainian drones between late Thursday and early Friday. A separate Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Belgorod region killed two people and wounded 12, according to Russian regional officials.
The fighting continues despite the largely deadlocked ground front, more than four and a half years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.