Kyiv: Russian strikes killed at least two people in Ukraine, officials said Sunday, as the Ukrainian military struck a drone factory in southwestern Russia.
A “massive” nighttime drone strike on Chernihiv in northern Ukraine killed a 16-year-old boy and wounded four others, according to the head of the city’s military administration.
Rescuers found the teenager’s body as they cleared away rubble, Dmytro Bryzhynskyi reported on Telegram Sunday morning. He said the drone strike also wounded three women and one man. Several houses were set on fire, he added.
Russian drones also attacked the southern city of Kherson Sunday, local officials reported.
A man died of his wounds after a drone hit a van driving through the city centre, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, the head of the regional administration. A second man was hospitalised with blast injuries, regional authorities said.
Russia launched 236 drones into Ukrainian territory overnight into Sunday, Ukraine’s air force reported. Of those, 203 drones were shot down while 32 hit targets in 18 separate locations, it said.
Kyiv says it struck a Russian drone factory
Meanwhile, Ukraine hit a drone factory in the city of Taganrog, Ukraine’s General Staff reported. The site lies some 55 kilometres (35 miles) east of Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine in southwestern Russia.
According to the military, Ukrainian drones sparked a fire at the Atlant Aero factory, which designs and produces strike and reconnaissance drones, as well as components for more powerful UAVs that can carry guided bombs weighing up to 250 kilograms (550 pounds).
Ukraine’s navy said it carried out the attack on the drone factory in southern Russia, using domestically manufactured Neptune cruise missiles.
“This defence enterprise is an important part of the Russian military-industrial complex, where drones were developed and manufactured,” the navy said in an online post.
It also posted images showing a huge cloud of smoke over the city, which it said was the impact of the strikes.
Three people were injured in a nighttime air attack on commercial infrastructure in Taganrog, according to the Russian regional governor, Yuri Slyusar. He did not specify what facility was hit, but said warehouses were set on fire following the strike.
Taganrog Mayor Svetlana Kambulova said the strike damaged “commercial enterprises” in the city, as well as a vocational school and multiple cars.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 274 Ukrainian drones during the night, as well as guided aerial bombs and a Neptune cruise missile. The ministry did not say how many struck targets.
Ukraine launches inquiry into mass shooting in the capital
Ukraine’s Interior Ministry Sunday launched an official inquiry into a mass shooting in Kyiv the previous day that killed six people and wounded at least 14 others.
A gunman wielding an automatic weapon killed six people and barricaded himself inside a supermarket with hostages in the Ukrainian capital before he was shot and killed by police, authorities said.
Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko described the attacker’s mental state as “clearly unstable.”
The 58-year-old gunman has not been named, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Saturday said he was born in Russia. Authorities worked to piece together a motive for the violence.
Several police officers were suspended for allegedly failing to respond appropriately in the initial stages of the shooting. Klymenko, the interior minister, described their behaviour as “shameful and unworthy” of their role as police officers.
He said there was no plan to toughen gun ownership laws, arguing that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens had helped the country’s defence against Russia.
The mass shooting – unheard of in wartime Kyiv following Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022 – took place in a busy central district of the city, outside an apartment block and a nearby shopping centre, leaving bodies on a crowded street as bystanders fled for safety.
An Associated Press reporter at the scene saw victims’ bodies covered with emergency blankets before they were taken away.
Zelenskyy hits out at US sanctions waiver for Russian oil
Elsewhere, Zelenskyy responded with dismay to the Trump administration’s decision Friday to extend its pause on sanctions on Russian oil shipments.
“Every dollar paid for Russian oil is money for the war,” Zelenskyy wrote in a post on X, arguing that any additional revenue the Kremlin gets from oil sales “is directly converted into new strikes against Ukraine.”
“That is why it is important that Russian tankers are stopped, not allowed to deliver oil to ports. The aggressor’s oil exports must decrease, and Ukraine’s long-range sanctions continue to work toward that goal,” he added.
The so-called general license, intended to ease supply constraints resulting from the Iran war, means US sanctions will not apply for 30 days on deliveries of Russian oil that have been loaded on tankers as of Friday. It extended a similar 30-day license issued in March for Russian oil that had been loaded by March 11.
