5 killed as Russia, Ukraine exchange overnight drone attacks

Russia and Ukraine on Wednesday exchanged overnight drone attacks, with strikes killing at least five people and injuring dozens on both sides, officials claimed Wednesday.

In Ukraine, Kharkiv Gov. Oleh Synyehubov said on Telegram that two people were killed and 42 injured after a Russian drone struck a five-story apartment building in the Nemyshlyanskyi district.

Separately, a Russian missile strike on Kyiv killed two people and injured nine, while setting fire to an administrative building, warehouses and garages, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine wrote on Telegram.

Gov. Oleh Kiper said Russian drones also struck civilian infrastructure in the Odesa region, injuring nine people and damaging three gas stations and an energy facility.

Meanwhile, in Russia’s Saratov region, a Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and damaged civilian infrastructure, Gov. Roman Busagin said.

“There were casualties, all of whom are receiving necessary medical care,” he wrote on Russian social media company Max.

Ukraine’s General Staff claimed it shot down 139 Russian drones overnight, while Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed air defenses intercepted and destroyed 415 Ukrainian drones in multiple regions, including Crimea, which was annexed in 2014, the republic of Tatarstan, as well as above the Black and Azov seas.

Ukraine hit 2 Russian oil refineries, 6 vessels of shadow fleets

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian drones struck the Saratov and Voronezh regions, as well as the republics of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan.

“Russians must feel that their state is waging this war,” he wrote on US social media company X.

In a separate statement, Ukraine’s General Staff claimed the strikes targeted facilities supporting Russia’s military logistics, including the Saratov refinery, which has an annual processing capacity of about 7 million metric tons, and the TAIF-NK refining complex in Tatarstan with a capacity, all types of raw materials, of 8 million metric tons.

It added that Ukrainian forces struck six tankers from Russia’s shadow fleet in the Black and Azov seas.

“In addition, the Borisoglebsk airfield in the Voronezh region of the Russian Federation was hit,” said the statement.

The claims by both sides could not be independently verified due to the ongoing war.