Russian drones kill 15 at shopping mall in Zelenskyy's hometown
Russian drones struck a shopping centre in the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine on Friday, killing at least 15 people and wounding scores of others, authorities said.
The shopping mall strike, along with two other separate Russian attacks in the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions, left a total of 21 people dead across Ukraine on Friday, authorities said.
Kryvyi Rih is the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who described the attack as a "double-tap" strike, in which an initial wave of drones hit the area, followed by a second wave roughly half an hour later as rescue workers responded. "An absolute Russian atrocity. They're just monsters," Zelenskyy wrote on social media. In a video address several hours later, he said Ukraine would respond to the attack.
Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said on Friday evening that the strike on the mall had killed at least 15 people and injured 130, including 23 children. Rescue operations were continuing as rubble was cleared.
Kryvyi Rih has been hit multiple times during the more than four-year-old war, with one of the deadliest attacks occurring in April 2025, when 20 people, including nine children, were killed.
Russia exploits Ukraine's shortage of defensive systems
Earlier on Friday, a Russian drone attack on Ukraine's Kharkiv region killed two women, aged 73 and 66, and wounded two others, regional head Oleh Syniehubov said.
Another Russian attack on Friday evening killed four people, including three children, in Ukraine's southern Mykolaiv region, emergency services said.
Ukraine shot down or suppressed 107 of 135 drones launched by Russia overnight, its air force said on Telegram.
Friday's attacks came just 24 hours after Russia pounded Kyiv with scores of missiles and drones in a nighttime aerial assault that killed 16 people.
Large-scale Russian strikes have become a regular occurrence this summer. Just over two weeks ago, a Russian attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people, and nine were killed in the city two days before that. The United Nations said last week that Kyiv was one of the hardest-hit cities in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 injured.
Moscow's forces have recently intensified ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, exploiting Ukraine's chronic shortage of US-made Patriot air defence interceptors — the only weapon in its arsenal capable of shooting down such missiles.
Ukrainian drones hit Russian oil refinery
A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and wounded four others when it struck a car on Friday in Russia's Belgorod region, near the village of Razumnoye, local officials said, adding that two of the injured were in serious condition.
Earlier, Zelenskyy said a separate Ukrainian drone attack had hit an oil refinery in Perm, more than 1,600 kilometres from Ukraine's border. He said the Marinovka military airfield in Russia's Volgograd region had also been struck.
Russian outlet Astra reported the drone had set ablaze a Lukoil-operated refinery in Perm. Local officials said damage was recorded at an unidentified "industrial facility."
Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences had intercepted 325 Ukrainian drones overnight across 15 Russian regions and Crimea, the peninsula Moscow illegally annexed in 2014. Later on Friday, it said it had shot down a further 211 drones.
Long-range strikes between Russia and Ukraine have escalated as troops fail to make significant battlefield progress, analysts say. Movements along the roughly 1,250-kilometre front line in eastern and southern Ukraine are severely restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots threatening infantry and vehicles.
Over the past year, Ukraine has deployed domestically produced long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia, drawing attention from governments and defence manufacturers worldwide.
Officials in Kyiv aim to make ordinary Russians feel the consequences of the war and pressure President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. Putin has so far shown no sign of ending the invasion.
