Kyiv: A Russian drone strike killed three people in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, local officials said Saturday, while Romania shot down a drone over its airspace for the second time in two days.
Sumy regional head Oleh Hryhorov said Saturday that a large fire broke out when a drone struck a “civilian facility”, adding that the victims were drivers for private Ukrainian postal and courier service Nova Poshta.
In Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, a Russian drone attack Friday night hit a shopping centre, causing a fire that spread over a 500-square-metre area, causing several injuries, regional head Ivan Fedorov said.
A major Russian attack Friday on a site near Kyiv that hosted a defence industry event killed at least 10 people and wounded nearly 100 others.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in his evening address late Friday that intelligence assessments indicated that Russia was preparing missiles for a large attack on Ukraine, saying there were indications that this could happen in the next 48 hours.
Meanwhile, Romania’s defence ministry said Saturday its forces “safely shot down” a drone breaching its airspace in an “unpopulated area” near the Ukrainian border. Writing on Facebook, Romanian President Nicuor Dan said the drone was “shot down by a Romanian pilot from an F-16 aircraft.”
Saturday’s interception came after a drone was shot down around Padina, northeast of the Romanian capital, Bucharest, on Friday.
A series of drone incursions from both Russia and Ukraine have hit Romania and other NATO members since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In June, a Ukrainian maritime drone that was being used in the war exploded at the Black Sea port of Constanta, while three other sea drones exploded outside the port. No one was hurt.
A month earlier, a Russian drone that was part of an attack on Ukraine went astray and struck an apartment building in eastern Romania, injuring two people.
