Ukraine and Russia exchange attacks after ‘seven killed on beach’

Ukrainian drone attacks in the region around Moscow killed five people, local officials said, while authorities in Ukraine said Russian aerial strikes there also caused at least five civilian deaths.

Since Russia’s invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine has developed long-range drones that can hit targets deep inside Russia. In the past year, they have battered oil facilities, major storage depots and other key infrastructure.

Russia’s relentless aerial attacks on Ukraine have killed more than 16,000 civilians, with casualties rising steadily each year, according to the United Nations.

Neither side publishes verifiable numbers of troop casualties on the front line, which winds about 800 miles through eastern and southern Ukraine.

The death toll from a drone strike on Monday in the Russian Black Sea resort of Arkhipo-Osipovka rose to seven, including three children, regional authorities said.

On Tuesday morning, Krasnodar regional authorities updated the number of wounded to 58, with 21 of them in hospital.

Footage circulating online showed a drone slamming into a crowded beach, with what sounded like rapid gunfire ringing in the background.

A Ukrainian drone attack in the Moscow region, which surrounds but does not include the Russian capital, killed five people and wounded 10 others on Tuesday morning, the region’s governor Andrei Vorobyov said.

Most damage from the attack occurred in the Chekhov municipal district, where several fires erupted at the Novoselki industrial zone, Mr Vorobyov said.

In the latest in a string of attacks on Russia’s biggest online retailer, Wildberries said on Tuesday that its warehouse in the Leningrad region, which lies adjacent to St Petersburg, was on fire.

In the Tver region, located between Moscow and St Petersburg, drone debris inflicted “partial” damage on a wall of a Wildberries warehouse in the village of Emmaus, the region’s governor Vitaly Korolyov said.

Overall, the Russian Defence Ministry reported on Tuesday morning that its air defences shot down 320 Ukrainian drones overnight.

The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that its forces the previous night “continued to strike Ukrainian ports, vessels, and port infrastructure” used by Kyiv’s army.

In the port of Chornomorsk in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, the Russian military said it struck an automobile components plant and a port terminal, where the Ukrainian forces “were repairing military vehicles and storing ammunition and fuel”.

Meanwhile, a bulk carrier with military cargo was damaged in the southern port of Mykolaiv, while another ship unloading military cargo was hit in Pivdennyi, another Ukrainian Black Sea port, according to the statement.

The ministry also said two bulk carriers taking weapons and military equipment to Ukrainian ports were damaged at sea, south of Odesa.

Russian attacks on Mykolaiv, including its port, killed an 89-year-old woman and wounded seven other people aged between two and 83, Ukrainian regional officials said.

The Russian strike on civilian infrastructure in southern Odesa region destroyed a private home and wounded two people, according to Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa regional military administration.

Elsewhere, in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, six Russian glide bombs killed three people, including two girls aged five and 10 and an elderly woman, Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy regional military administration, said.

Russian forces also struck Kharkiv and 18 towns and villages across the northern region over the previous 24 hours, killing one person and injuring seven others, including an eight-year-old child, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration.