Russian drone strikes kill several people in Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia

Five people have been killed and one person injured in a Russian drone strike on Ukraine’s southern city of Mykolaiv, according to local authorities.

The city’s mayor, Oleksandr Senkevych, said Russia attacked overnight using kamikaze drones, destroying a house and damaging a residential building which was set alight following the attack.

Meanwhile in Zaporizhzhia, one person has died and at least 21 people have been wounded, including children, in three Russian strikes.

Ukraine’s National Police reports that the strikes were carried out using FAB-500 bombs, partially destroying a residential building and damaging a car dealership and dormitory town.

Residents are being evacuated and rescue operations are still ongoing.

The attacks comes as Russia launched its largest overnight drone strike on Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, with Ukrainian air defences detecting a record 145 incoming drones on Saturday night.

The surge in attacks comes as Russia continues to make gains in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, while Ukrainian forces become increasingly stretched along the front line.

However, Ukraine is continuing to return fire, launching a massive drone strike on Moscow and its suburbs overnight into Sunday.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said a total of 84 Ukrainian drones were shot down in Russian territory, following what it called a “mass strike on civilian infrastructure.” A man died under the rubble after drones struck his apartment block in Russia’s Belgorod region, just kilometres from the Ukrainian border, according to the region’s governor.

Five other people were injured in the Moscow suburb of Ramenskoe and a nearby village, according to local officials. Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram shared eyewitness reports of drone debris causing fires to flare up in suburban homes.

Russia’s aviation authority said flights were briefly grounded at major international airports, including Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo. At least 14 flights bound for Moscow were rerouted to Nizhnyi Novgorod, a city over 490 kilometres to the east, airport representatives there reported.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces claimed on Sunday that Ukrainian drones caused a fire at an arms depot in Russia’s southern Bryansk region, near Ukraine and Belarus.