Russia and Ukraine have intensified their attacks, with at least 16 people reported killed in the latest wave of strikes as fighting continues with no major breakthrough in US-led efforts to end the war.
The escalation comes after what has been described as the deadliest summer of the conflict since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, triggering Europe’s most severe war since World War II.
US-led negotiations aimed at ending the fighting have yet to produce a breakthrough. The Kremlin has repeatedly said it intends to capture the remaining parts of eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian authorities said Russian strikes killed at least six people in the northeastern Sumy region, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk. A 17-year-old girl was among those killed.
Several people were also wounded in Kyiv, a day after a Russian daytime attack on the capital killed seven people. Russian strikes on Kyiv have intensified as the city prepares for another winter amid the ongoing war.
Russia, meanwhile, said Ukrainian attacks killed four people in the Krasnodar and Belgorod regions.
Vladimir Saldo, the Moscow-appointed head of the occupied Kherson region, said a Ukrainian drone struck a cafe in the village of Askaniya-Nova, near Crimea, on Friday evening.
He said rescuers recovered the bodies of two young girls, born in 2004 and 2006, from beneath the rubble. A man was also reported killed in the same area.
Another Moscow-appointed official, Yevgeny Balitsky, said overnight Ukrainian strikes killed three more people in the Russian-occupied part of the Zaporizhzhia region.
United Nations officials have raised concerns over the growing number of civilian casualties resulting from the conflict.
Speaking at the UN General Assembly this week, US President Donald Trump again said an agreement between Moscow and Kyiv to end the war would eventually be reached. However, negotiations have so far failed to produce a settlement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Saturday that Russia was escalating its attacks on a daily basis.
In Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, residents of a Soviet-era apartment building damaged by a Russian drone were clearing debris and assessing the damage while preparing for further attacks.
Resident Oleksandr Gorlachov, 43, said he had been outside the city when his elderly parents, who are both deaf, contacted him by video call early Saturday morning. He immediately returned to help them.
He said the apartment building had suffered extensive damage, including the destruction of his mother’s sewing machine.
Despite the destruction, Gorlachov said he was grateful that his family members had survived. He described the repeated attacks on Kyiv as a source of constant stress for residents.
Despite the worsening security situation in Kyiv, Gorlachov said he had no plans to leave the city.
Another resident, Anastasiia Grygorovych, said she was awakened when a window fell onto her during an attack. She had previously fled her hometown of Gorlivka, which is now under Russian control.
Grygorovych said she was now considering leaving Ukraine altogether as the conflict continues.
