KYIV, Ukraine –
Russian glide bombs, drones and a ballistic missile smashed into cities in southern and eastern Ukraine on Monday, officials said, killing at least six civilians and injuring about 30 others.
Russia recently intensified strikes that have long tormented civilian areas, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, in an apparent effort to unnerve Ukrainians and wear down their willingness to keep up a war that is approaching its 1,000-day milestone.
“Every day, every night, Russia commits the same terror,” Zelenskyy said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “Except that an increasing number of civilian objects are becoming targets.”
Both Russia and Ukraine are waiting to see how Washington will change its policy on the war after Donald Trump takes office in January. The U.S. is the biggest provider of military help to Ukraine but Trump has chided the Biden administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars of aid.
The major cities struck Monday by Russia are close to the war’s around 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) front line.
Russian drones hammered the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing five people and injuring a 45-year-old woman, local authorities said. Around two dozen people sought psychological help following the attack that damaged houses and stores, officials said.
Mykolaiv, located about 60 kilometres (37 miles) northwest of the front line in the Kherson region, frequently comes under Russian attack.
An overnight attack on Zaporizhzhia, also in the south, with three powerful glide bombs killed one person and injured 21, including a 4-year-old boy, Ukraine’s National Police said.
The strikes partially destroyed a two-story apartment building and damaged a dormitory.
A five-story apartment building in Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskyy’s hometown in central Ukraine, was hit by a Russian ballistic missile, injuring at least eight people. Emergency services were searching through the rubble, Oleksandr Vikul, head of Kryviy Rih Military Administration said.
The missile destroyed all five stories in one part of the building, he said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s intelligence agency claimed in a statement it destroyed a Russian Mi-24 assault helicopter parked at the Klin-5 airfield in the Moscow region. The claim could not be independently verified.
The Russian Defence Ministry said Monday that 17 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the Russian regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh overnight and in the morning.