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Russian missile and drone attacks in the cities of Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine killed eight people and wounded dozens, Ukrainian authorities said on Monday.
A missile attack damaged a private business in Dnipro, killing five people and wounding 29, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha and Ukraine’s emergency services said on Telegram.
Ukrainian police said an emergency and rescue operation following the attack continued.
“Russia launched a missile strike on Dnipro, targeting infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X, adding that rescue operations were underway.
“It is essential that Europe is as active as possible in developing its own anti-ballistic defence — its own systems and missiles.”
A separate Russian drone attack on a passenger minibus in Zaporizhzhia killed two men and a woman, and injured seven others, including a seven-year-old boy, regional prosecutors said.
Ukraine’s drone offensive into the Russian-controlled region of Crimea has prompted officials to declare a state of emergency. Russia’s Defence Ministry said air defences shot down 660 Ukrainian drones in a major nighttime attack on the peninsula and 12 other regions June 25.
Moscow illegally annexed the region from Ukraine back in 2014 before eventually launching a full-scale assault on Ukraine. But for locals living there now, the attacks are causing fuel restrictions and blackouts amid what’s supposed to be prime time for the area’s tourism sector.
There was no comment from Russia on the attacks. Moscow’s war in Ukraine, now into its fifth year, has killed tens of thousands. Ukraine has also hit civilian targets during attacks on Russia or Russian-occupied areas, though on a much smaller scale.
Both sides deny targeting civilians.
The Kremlin said on Monday that Russia has not changed its stance on the conditions needed for a peace deal in Ukraine since President Vladimir Putin said in 2024 that Kyiv’s forces had to withdraw from four regions Moscow says are its own, as well as publicly drop its plans to join NATO.
Putin said in a television interview on the weekend that Russia would press ahead with its battlefield aim of fully controlling the four regions, rejecting what he said was a new proposal by Ukraine to rein in hostilities in the more than four-year-old war.
Putin said in the same interview that Ukraine had proposed a mutual halt to long-range strikes and that fighting should be limited to the four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — which Russia has claimed as its own, something Kyiv rejects as an illegal land grab.
Putin acknowledged on Sunday that fuel supply problems had created shortages in Russian regions and a task force was working on ensuring sufficient quantities were provided throughout the country.
Ukraine has stepped up medium- and long-range attacks on industrial targets in Russia and Russian-controlled territories inside Ukraine, focusing mainly on the oil sector.
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