KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian drone attack before dawn on Ukraine’s southern city of Odesa wounded 14 people, including two children, authorities said Monday, in the latest barrage of civilian areas that have been a hallmark of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbor.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone strike killed two people in the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Moscow-installed Gov. Vladimir Saldo said Monday. A man and a woman in their 70s died in the village of Dnipriany, he said.
In Odesa, drones hit residential neighborhoods and civilian infrastructure, said Serhii Lysak, the head of the city’s administration. Russia has repeatedly targeted Odesa, a key Black Sea port for Ukraine, since Moscow launched the war more than four years ago on Feb. 24, 2022.
Five of the wounded, most of them with shrapnel wounds, were hospitalized, according to Oleh Kiper, the head of the regional military administration.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday that Russia has fired approximately 1,900 attack drones, nearly 1,400 powerful guided aerial bombs and around 60 missiles of various types at Ukraine over the past week.
Ukraine’s wartime development of means that it's intercepting more than 90% of the drones that Russia launches, Zelenskyy said in an X post. However, Ukraine needs more American-made Patriot air defense missiles, which are able to shoot down Russia’s ballistic missiles.
Ukraine has recently been helping counter attacks on their territory by Iranian drones.
Norway is the latest European country to enter into a joint drone manufacturing agreement with Kyiv, Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Monday.
In Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that his government plans to build a “drone armada†with Ukraine’s help, to defend both itself and the rest of Europe.
Zelenskyy also announced that Ukraine is massively scaling up the production of ground robots that can deliver supplies, evacuate injured soldiers and fire automatic weapons. The uncrewed vehicles can help to ease the pressure on Ukraine's short-handed infantry along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (770-mile) front line.
Ukraine has ordered 25,000 ground robots for this year, twice as many as in 2025, and the number is set to grow, he said in a separate post on X.
Zelenskyy noted a recent raft of good news for Ukraine: NATO partners, excluding the United States, have contributed to a financial arrangement to buy American weapons; the European Union has approved a 90-billion-euro ($106-billion) ; and the EU intends to place more sanctions on Moscow.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has been assailing oil terminals and refineries deep inside Russia with long-range drones and missiles, aiming to disrupt Moscow’s economy.
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said late Sunday it has seen geolocated evidence that Ukrainian forces conducted at least 10 strikes against Russian oil and gas infrastructure in the past two weeks.
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Claudia Ciobanu contributed to this report from Warsaw, Poland.
