Ukrainian drones hit Russian energy and defence infrastructure in response to deadly strikes on Kyiv and Kharkiv
Rescuers lay toys and flowers on the site of Russia's Thursday night missile strike in Kyiv that hit a house and left 31 dead, including five children. Photo: AP
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 were wounded in a drone strike on business premises 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.
Russian officials did not name specific facilities which were 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.
According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia launched 53 drones and decoys at Ukraine overnight into yesterday. It said that air defences shot down or jammed 45 drones. Eleven people were wounded in an overnight drone strike on the Kharkiv region, governor Oleh Syniehubov said yesterday. 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 more than 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.
Mr 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.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's anti-corruption bodies said yesterday they had uncovered a major graft scheme that procured military drones and signal jamming systems at inflated prices, two days after the agencies' independence was restored following major protests.
The independence of Ukraine's anti-graft investigators and prosecutors, NABU and SAPO, was reinstated by parliament on Thursday after a move to take it away resulted in the country's biggest demonstrations since Russia's invasion in 2022.
In a statement published by both agencies on social media, NABU and SAPO said they had caught a sitting lawmaker, two local officials and an unspecified number of national guard personnel taking bribes. None of them were identified.
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