Three dead in Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia
Russia's Defence Ministry said air defences intercepted or destroyed 112 drones across eight Russian regions and the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula.
A drone attack on the Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, killed one person, acting governor Yuri Slyusar said.
Further from the front line, a woman was killed and two other people wounded in a drone strike in the Penza region, according to regional governor Oleg Melnichenko.
In the Samara region, falling drone debris sparked a fire that killed an elderly resident, regional Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said.
In these and other regions, governors reported damage to industrial facilities.
Russian officials did not name specific facilities hit, but Ukrainian authorities later said they had targeted key sites in Russia's energy and defence sectors late on Friday in retaliation for deadly Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities earlier this week.
Ukraine's General Staff said it struck the Ryazan and Novokuibyshevsk oil refineries, a fuel storage facility in Voronezh, and a defence-linked electronics manufacturer in Penza.
Ukraine's SBU intelligence agency said its drones had hit Russia's Primorsko-Akhtarsk military airfield, which has been used to launch waves of long-range drones at targets in Ukraine.
According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia launched 53 drones and decoys at Ukraine overnight into Saturday.
It said that air defences shot down or jammed 45 drones.
Eleven people were wounded in a drone strike on the Kharkiv region, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said Saturday.
The reciprocal drone strikes followed a day of mourning in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Friday, after a Russian drone and missile attack killed 31 people, including five children, and wounded over 150.
The continued attacks come after US President Donald Trump on Tuesday gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline — August 8 — for peace efforts to make progress.
Trump said on Thursday that special envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Russia to push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine and has threatened new economic sanctions if progress is not made.
Also in Ukraine, protesters gathered in the west-central city of Vinnytsia late on Friday to demand the release of men detained by military enlistment offices.
They broke into a stadium where the detainees were being held.
According to the regional military recruitment centre, a group of conscripts had been brought there for medical examinations and other procedures related to mobilisation.
"In the evening, a group of civilians gathered near the centre and behaved aggressively. Attempts to illegally enter the temporary assembly point, damage property and disturb public order were recorded," a statement from the centre said.
The incident came amid rising public frustration over Ukraine's mobilisation drive, as the war with Russia grinds on in its fourth year.
Russian forces now control almost 20 per cent of Ukraine in its east and south after three-and-a-half years of grinding war.
with Reuters
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