Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile kill six people and injure 30 in Ukraine

Kyiv, Ukraine – Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile struck cities in southern and eastern Ukraine on Monday, officials said, killing at least six civilians and wounding about 30 others.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia has recently stepped up attacks that have long plagued civilian areas, apparently in an effort to unsettle Ukrainians and weaken their willingness to continue a war that is nearing its 1,000-day mark. Milestone approaching.

“Every day, every night, Russia commits the same terror,” Zelensky said in a post on the messaging app Telegram. “Except that more and more civilian objects are becoming targets.”

Both Russia and Ukraine are waiting to see how Washington will change its war policy after Donald Trump takes office as US president in January. The United States is the largest donor of military aid to Ukraine, but Trump has rebuked the Biden administration for giving tens of billions of dollars in aid to Kiev.

The Ukrainian army wants to expand its mobile units, whose task is primarily to shoot down drones, in the regions that are most often affected by Russian attacks, Zelensky said on Telegram.

He also said that Ukraine was working on producing its own glide bombs as part of a domestic missile program. Russian glide bombs are having a significant impact on the battlefield, as their destructive power reduces settlements to rubble and makes it increasingly difficult for Ukrainian forces to hold their defenses.

Ukrainian forces are slowly being pushed back in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is exerting its greater military might. Zelensky said Ukraine would carry out “significant reinforcement” in areas near the Donetsk settlements of Kurakhove and Pokrovsk, where the Ukrainian army risked being overrun.

Zelensky added that Ukraine was holding its positions in the Russian border region of Kursk, where Western and Ukrainian officials say Russia is being supported by thousands of newly arrived North Korean troops. He said Russia had sent around 50,000 troops to Kursk.

Also in Donetsk, near the recently captured settlement of Hirnyk, the Russians damaged a dam on the Kurakhiv reservoir, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.

Local water levels in the Vovcha River rose by 1.2 meters, although no houses were affected and possible flooding threatened both the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, he said.

“We continue to monitor the water levels in the river and are prepared for any developments,” Filashkin said.

The development brought back memories of the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine in June 2023, which killed hundreds of people. An Associated Press investigation found the collapse was likely caused by Russian forces.

The major cities attacked by Russia on Monday are close to the approximately 1,000 kilometer long front line.

Russian drones bombed the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing five people and wounding a 45-year-old woman, local authorities said. About two dozen people sought psychological help after the attack that damaged homes and businesses, officials said.

Mykolaiv, located about 60 kilometers (40 miles) northwest of the front line in the Kherson region, is frequently attacked by Russia.

A nighttime attack on Zaporizhia, also in the south, with three powerful glide bombs killed one person and wounded 21, including a four-year-old boy, Ukrainian national police said.

As a result of the strikes, a two-story apartment building was partially destroyed and a dormitory was damaged.

A five-story apartment building in Kryvyi Rih, Zelensky's hometown in central Ukraine, was hit by a Russian ballistic missile, injuring at least eight people. Emergency services were searching the rubble, said Oleksandr Vikul, head of Kryviy Rih's military administration.

The rocket destroyed all five floors in one part of the building, he said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian intelligence claimed in a statement that it had destroyed a Russian Mi-24 attack helicopter parked at the Klin-5 airfield in the Moscow region. The claim could not be independently verified.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that 17 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the Russian regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh during the night and morning.

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