KYIV: Ukrainian attacks on Russia killed at least nine people on Sunday, while Russian attacks on Ukraine killed at least five, according to officials in both countries. The exchange comes amid signs both Moscow and Kyiv are escalating the scale and intensity of their strikes, nearly four-and-a-half years into the war.
Civilian casualties in Ukraine have risen sharply this year as Russia has increasingly relied on long-range missiles that are difficult to intercept, according to UN data. Kyiv, meanwhile, has stepped up retaliatory strikes on Russian energy facilities and retail warehouses, seeking to pressure Moscow toward negotiations.
In Russia’s Belgorod region, a strike near a playground killed a 13-year-old girl along with three others, according to acting governor Alexander Shuvayev, who said medics could not save her given the severity of her injuries. Russia’s children’s rights commissioner, Maria Lvova-Belova, described the strike as a deliberate act of terror by Ukraine.
Elsewhere in Russia, a drone attack on the Saratov region killed two people, with a residential building struck in the city of Engels — home to a military airbase. Ukraine’s military said it had targeted both the Engels airbase and an oil refinery in Saratov, along with an oil depot in the Kaluga region, sparking fires. A Ukrainian drone strike on a car in Russia’s Udmurtia region, more than 1,000 km from the front line, killed three people; regional governor Olga Abramova called the strike senseless and said the victims were clearly not a military target.
