Russian missile attack kills five in Ukraine's southeast
Officials gave no immediate details on damage in the city, where an attack on an unidentified infrastructure facility on Tuesday killed two people. Hundreds of kilometres to the south, in the Kherson region, authorities urged residents on Friday to prepare for extended periods without power after a Russian attack hit a key energy facility. Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram that "Russians decided to plunge the region into darkness".
In recent weeks Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian cities, particularly its capital Kyiv, more than three years into the war that followed its full-scale attack. The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 363 long-range drones and eight missiles overnight into Friday, targeting a small western city of Starokostiantyniv, home to an important air base. There were no details on damage.
Russia's drone production jumped by 16.9% in May compared to the previous month, data from a think tank close to the government showed on Friday, after President Vladimir Putin called for output to be stepped up. Putin in April said that more than 1.5 million drones of various types had been produced last year, including about 4,000 first-person view (FPV) drones — lightweight models designed for precision targeting, but said that troops fighting on the front line in Ukraine needed more.
Both sides have deployed drones on a huge scale, using them to spot and hit targets not only on the battlefield but way beyond the front lines. Drone production growth of 16.9% in May was significantly higher than previous months, according to the Centre for Macroeconomic Analysis and Short-Term Forecasting, an economic think tank close to the government.
The average monthly increase in the previous five months was 3.7%, the report said and the level in May was 1.6 times higher than average monthly output in 2024.
Moscow has been developing a new laser-based system to defend against drones, especially important as Ukrainian drones frequently strike sites deep inside Russia such as oil depots, refineries and airfields.
A Russian attack damaged energy infrastructure in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, its governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on the Telegram messaging app on Friday. He said the attack on an "important power facility" caused power cuts in some settlements in the region, which is close to front lines with Russian forces.
A Ukrainian drone attack on Russia's Kursk region on the border with Ukraine injured a war correspondent from the Chinese news outlet Phoenix TV, Russian authorities said late on Thursday, urging the United Nations to respond to the incident. "A Ukrainian drone today struck the village of Korenevo in the Korenevsky district," acting governor of the Kursk region, Alexander Khinshtein, said on the Telegram messaging app. "A 63-year-old correspondent, Lu Yuguang, who went to the border area on his own, was injured." Khinshtein said in a later post that the journalist had skin cuts to his head and after treatment, refused hospitalisation.
Russia's foreign ministry called on the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and other international organisations to "promptly respond and give a proper assessment" of the incident. "The targeted attack... indicates the intention of the Kyiv regime to silence and de facto destroy representatives of any media that seek to convey objective information," Maria Zakharova, the foreign ministry's spokeswoman, said. — Reuters
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