A Ukrainian drone strike killed one person and wounded three others in the Russian city of Voronezh, local officials said Sunday. Meanwhile, thousands of residents were still without power in Kyiv, following an intense Russian bombardment.
A young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit after debris from a drone fell on a house during the attack on Saturday, Voronezh regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said on Telegram.
Three other people were wounded and more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged, he said, adding that air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh. The city is home to just over 1 million people and lies some 250 kilometers (155 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Sunday said its forces hit three drilling platforms operated by Russian oil giant Lukoil in the waters of the Caspian Sea. Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian energy sites aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion.
The attacks came after Russia bombarded Ukraine with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles overnight into Friday, killing at least four people in the capital Kyiv, according to Ukrainian officials. For only the second time in the nearly four-year war, Russia used a powerful new hypersonic missile that struck western Ukraine in a clear warning to Kyiv and NATO.
Ukraine’s largest private energy supplier, DTEK, said Sunday that 30,000 people in Kyiv were still without power following the attack. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Friday around half the apartment buildings — nearly 6,000 — in snowy Kyiv were left without heat in daytime temperatures of about minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 Fahrenheit).
The intense barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend the country from further aggression by Moscow if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday in his nightly address that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”
Chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners on Saturday, he said.
Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and 125 were shot down.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s main intelligence directorate said Sunday that Russia this month deployed the new jet-powered “Geran-5” strike drone against Ukraine for the first time. The Geran is a Russian variant of the Iranian-designed Shahed.
According to the directorate, the drone can carry a 90-kilogram (200-pound) warhead and has a range of nearly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).
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