Three dead as Ukrainian drone strikes hits Russia

Ukrainian drone strikes overnight have left at least three people dead and two others injured in western Russia, according to regional authorities.

In Penza, a woman lost her life and two others sustained injuries following a strike on a local enterprise, Governor Oleg Melnichenko announced via Telegram on Saturday.

Meanwhile, in the Samara region, drone debris caused a house fire that killed an elderly man, Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev confirmed in a separate Telegram post.

The incidents mark another escalation in cross-border hostilities amid the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict.

In the Rostov region, a guard at an industrial facility was killed after a drone attack and a fire in one of the site’s buildings, acting Rostov governor Yuri Sliusar said.

“The military repelled a massive air attack during the night,” destroying drones over seven districts, Sliusar posted on Telegram.

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defence systems had destroyed 112 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory — 34 over the Rostov region — in a nearly nine-hour period, from Friday night to Saturday morning.

In Ukraine’s central-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, overnight Russian drone attacks left three people wounded, governor Sergiy Lysak wrote on Telegram.

Several buildings, homes and cars were damaged, he said.

Russian forces have claimed advances in Dnipropetrovsk, recently announcing the capture of two villages there, part of Moscow’s accelerated capture of territory in July, according to AFP’s analysis of data from the US-based Institute for the Study of War.

Kyiv denies any Russian presence in the Dnipropetrovsk area.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire in the more than three-year conflict, said Friday that he wanted peace but that his demands for ending Moscow’s military offensive were “unchanged”.

Those demands include that Ukraine abandon territory and end ambitions to join NATO.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, said only Putin could end the war and renewed his call for a meeting between the two leaders.

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“The United States has proposed this. Ukraine has supported it. What is needed is Russia’s readiness,” he wrote on X.