Ukrainian drone attacks overnight into Saturday killed three people, Russian officials said Saturday, as the two sides continued to trade airstrikes.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses intercepted or destroyed 112 drones across eight Russian regions and the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.
A drone attack on the Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, killed one person, acting governor Yuri Slyusar said. Further from the front line, a woman was killed and two other people wounded in a drone strike in the Penza region, according to regional governor Oleg Melnichenko. In the Samara region, falling drone debris sparked a fire that killed an elderly resident, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said.
In these and other regions, governors reported damage to industrial facilities.
Russian officials did not name specific facilities hit, but Ukrainian authorities later said they had targeted key sites in Russia’s energy and defense sectors late Friday in retaliation for deadly Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities earlier this week. Ukraine’s General Staff said it struck the Ryazan and Novokuibyshevsk oil refineries, a fuel storage facility in Voronezh, and a defense-linked electronics manufacturer in Penza.
According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia launched 53 drones and decoys at Ukraine overnight into Saturday. It said that air defenses shot down or jammed 45 drones.
Eleven people were wounded in an overnight drone strike on the Kharkiv region, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday.
The reciprocal drone strikes followed a day of mourning in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Friday, after a Russian drone and missile attack killed 31 people, including five children, and wounded over 150.
The continued attacks come after U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline — Aug. 8 — for peace efforts to make progress.
Trump said Thursday that special envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Russia to push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine and has threatened new economic sanctions if progress is not made.
Also in Ukraine, protesters gathered in the west-central city of Vinnytsia late Friday to demand the release of men detained by military enlistment offices, and broke into a stadium where the detainees were being held.
According to the regional military recruitment center, a group of conscripts had been brought there for medical examinations and other procedures related to mobilization.
“In the evening, a group of civilians gathered near the center and behaved aggressively. Attempts to illegally enter the temporary assembly point, damage property and disturb public order were recorded,” a statement from the center said.
The incident came amid rising public frustration over Ukraine’s mobilization drive, as the war with Russia grinds on in its fourth year.
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