At least six people were killed on Friday as Russia and Ukraine exchanged accusations of air strikes. The exchange came after two days of peace talks mediated by the United States between the two countries in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, earlier this week. Drone attacks between Russia and Ukraine marked a new escalation.
Ukraine launched a large-scale drone attack on Russia late on Thursday, targeting Moscow. According to information circulating on social media, up to 700 drones were moving across Russian territory against various targets. Just over 50 of them have reportedly already been shot down. All four airports around Moscow have been closed due to the threat.
Damage in Russia and Ukraine
Volgograd Governor Andrey Bocharov said in a statement on Telegram that debris from the downed Ukrainian drones fell on an enterprise in the southern industrial zone of the regional capital and the area around it. According to him, this caused localized fires.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force claimed it shot down 80 of the 117 attack drones launched by Russia overnight. In Kyiv, the local department of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service (DSNS) said one person was injured after Russian attacks hit a hospital in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district, causing damage.
Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said one person was killed and five others were injured in his region after a Russian attack damaged residential buildings and passenger cars. Rescue teams and relevant services were working to deal with the consequences of the attack, he noted.
Local authorities in the Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zaporizhzhia regions also reported damage caused by overnight attacks. The Zaporizhzhia region reported that a 17-year-old boy had been killed.
Independent verification of the claims made by Russia and Ukraine is difficult due to the ongoing war.