During the night, Russia conducted a drone assault on various regions in Ukraine, targeting power infrastructure and causing harm to residential and commercial structures, resulting in at least seven injuries. The Ukrainian air force successfully intercepted 38 out of 42 Russian drones across eight regions. These drones were deployed from territories under the control of pro-Russian forces in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
The most serious of the drone attacks took place in Kharkiv, the capital of Ukraine’s eastern region of the same name, which is the focus of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Three of the drones hit a fuel depot in the city’s Nemyshlianskiy district, sparking a fire that quickly spread to nearby homes and caused significant damage. A mother and her two children were found dead in one house, and another woman and her baby daughter were killed in a separate home, the Kharkiv regional governor’s office reported on Telegram.
A fourth drone attacked a high-rise apartment building in the southern port city of Odesa, leaving it almost destroyed and killing seven. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Western allies to boost Ukraine’s defenses after the strike, and officials warned that more drone attacks could follow as Russia sought to break the nation’s spirit ahead of winter.
The rubble from the Odesa strike was covered with flowers, candles, and toys on Saturday as mourning family members visited the site. A relative of the dead woman, Anna, who was a florist and decorator, told CNN that her daughter Liza, two, doesn’t understand why she and her mom were killed. “She has no idea what happened; she just knows they’re in heaven,” the woman said.
In the western city of Lviv, the provincial governor’s office said 10 of the drones landed in the city center, damaging residential and educational buildings. The air force also shot down five of the drones over the western region of Kherson, which borders Crimea.
Ukraine’s military reported that at least one of the drones flew over a military base in eastern Ukraine, but the facility was unharmed. Ukraine’s army chief said he didn’t know the drone’s purpose.
The Ukrainian government has said it will launch a new offensive in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions next week, trying to destroy the Russian-controlled separatists’ supply lines. It also said it will continue to push for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory and will prepare for possible full-scale war.
Russia has been using drones to carry out many of its attacks in recent months and is believed to have about 40 Shahed attack drones and about 20 X-59 aviation missiles at its disposal. Its air forces have shot down about a third of the drones and missiles it has fired in recent weeks.