At least 16 people were killed in reciprocal Russian and Ukrainian attacks over the past 24 hours, authorities on both sides said Saturday, as the war entered its fifth year with intensified strikes across the front and beyond.
Ukraine said Russian attacks killed at least six people in the northeastern Sumy region and the southern Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk regions. Among the dead was a 17-year-old girl. Several people were also wounded in Kyiv, where a Russian attack a day earlier killed seven people.
Russia has stepped up attacks as winter approaches. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that Moscow was increasing its attacks on Ukraine every day.
In Russia, authorities reported four deaths in Ukrainian attacks in the Krasnodar and Belgorod regions.
Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of the occupied Kherson region, said Ukrainian drones struck a cafe in the village of Askania-Nova near Crimea on Friday evening. Two women, aged 20 and 22, were reportedly found dead under the rubble. Another person was also killed in the same area, according to Russian authorities.
In Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district, residents were clearing debris from a Soviet-era residential building damaged by a Russian drone strike.
Oleksandr Horlachov, 43, said he rushed home early Saturday after receiving a video call from his elderly parents. Their apartment had been completely damaged, he said, while his mother’s sewing machine was also destroyed.
Despite the damage and continuing pressure from the Russian attacks, Horlachov said he was grateful that his family had survived and that they had no plans to leave Kyiv.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-appointed official in occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia, said three more people were killed in overnight Ukrainian attacks in areas under Russian control.
The United Nations has expressed concern over the continuing rise in civilian casualties in the conflict.
At the UN General Assembly this week, US President Donald Trump again said he expected an agreement to end the war between Moscow and Kyiv. However, prospects for a settlement remain uncertain as fighting and long-range attacks continue.
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