At least 18 killed as Russia and Ukraine trade overnight strikes across border regions
Overnight cross-border strikes left 13 dead and around 90 injured in Ukraine, while five people were killed in Russia's Belgorod region.
Russia and Ukraine exchanged large-scale strikes overnight into Sunday, killing civilians and injuring dozens more on both sides of the border, according to local authorities. Russian missile bombardments of Ukrainian cities have become nearly routine in recent weeks as Moscow exploits Kyiv's critical shortage of interceptors for the US-made Patriot system, Ukraine's only air defence weapon capable of downing ballistic missiles.
Ukrainian officials said 13 people were killed and roughly 90 injured across the country in the past 24 hours. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said four people died in a single strike on the Kyiv region, including a three-year-old boy and his grandparents, with another fatality reported in a separate attack on civilian infrastructure. In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, missiles hit a high-rise apartment building in the Saltivskyi district, killing three and injuring 37, regional head Oleh Syniehubov said. At least six more deaths were reported in strikes on Sumy, Kherson and Donetsk. In Odesa, where officials said dozens of missiles and drones struck the port city and surrounding area, eight people were injured.
Zelenskyy called for tougher sanctions to curb Russia's ballistic missile production and renewed his appeal for more air defence supplies, including Patriot interceptors, SAMP/T, NASAMS and HAWK systems, and F-16 jets. He has spent months pressing allies, particularly the United States, to send more Patriot systems, supplies of which have grown scarcer amid the war in Iran.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian drone strikes killed five people and injured 24, including a four-year-old boy, in Russia's Belgorod border region, regional authorities said. Russia's defence ministry claimed its forces struck Ukrainian drone warehouses in the Kharkiv region and fuel and materiel depots at the port of Odesa, and said it downed 153 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over occupied Crimea. Belgorod authorities reported damage to dozens of apartment blocks and houses, while officials in Novorossiysk, home to a major oil export terminal, reported drone debris hitting two enterprises and a private home.
Kyiv has continued long-range drone strikes on Russian energy infrastructure and other targets, including the retailer Wildberries, as part of an effort to disrupt what it considers the financial backbone of Moscow's war effort.
