The repeated strikes have caused fuel shortages and rattled Russians. Ukrainians, meanwhile, are enduring regular barrages that Kyiv's depleted air defenses are struggling to counter amid Moscow's 4-year-old full-scale invasion.
The Kyiv region observed an official day of mourning Thursday after a Russian missile and drone blitz killed 17 people the previous day, prompting an increasingly urgent scramble by Ukraine and its allies to find new air defense supplies.
In the first six months of this year, 1,396 civilians were killed and 7,978 injured in Ukraine, the United Nations office in Kyiv said Wednesday. That was a 37% increase from the same period last year and a 114% jump over 2024, it said, attributing the rise to more long-range aerial attacks by Russia.
Zelenskyy said he met with senior officials on how to accelerate the development of Ukraine’s own ballistic weaponry, similar to its swift wartime innovation in drone technology.
Ukrainian forces hit a refinery in Russia's Bashkortostan region, more than 800 miles from the front line, as well as a refinery in the Yaroslavl region, almost 400 miles from the border, Zelenskyy said on social media.
Yaroslavl Gov. Mikhail Yevrayev confirmed an attack on a refinery, saying in a Telegram post that drone debris hit the facility’s oil reservoirs, sparking a fire. Three private houses also caught fire, and several residential buildings were damaged, he added.
Ukrainian forces also hit two Russian military patrol boats in the Black Sea, Zelenskyy said, along with vessels belonging to Moscow’s so-called shadow fleet, which Russia uses to evade Western restrictions on its oil exports. He did not give any details.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses overnight shot down 605 Ukrainian drones over its territory.
