Russian attacks kill six in Ukraine as Kyiv ramps up drone counter strikes

A teenager is among at least six people killed in Russian airstrikes across Ukraine over the past 24-hour period, local officials said on Sunday.

Of these, two people were killed and three were injured in the Kherson area after Russia fired more than 100 shells over the weekend, local governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

Two more people died in the Donetsk area, local officials said. An airstrike in the Kharkiv region killed a 57-year-old man and a 54-year-old woman, and also destroyed their home.

A 14-year-old boy was killed in a separate incident after a mine exploded in a field in the Mykolaiv region, interior minister Ihor Klymenko said. Another 12-year-old boy was also injured in the attack.

In another separate strike, Russia fired two guided bombs on key infrastructure in Kherson city, causing a partial blackout and disruption to the water supply in the area, the head of the city’s military administration Roman Mrochko said.

A total of 27,768 casualties in Ukraine have been recorded since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February last year, in which 9,806 civilians have been killed and 17,962 have been injured, according to United Nations high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR).

Ukraine saw 188 casualties – 66 killed and 122 injured – in just the first week of October, the OHCHR said. It has also warned that the actual figures of casualties are considerably higher.

This comes as Kyiv continued with its drone strikes inside Russia, with the Russian defence ministry claiming that Ukraine had launched 27 drones in an overnight attack on western Russia.

A total of 18 drones were shot down over the Kursk region as analysts speculated that Ukrainian forces were targeting the nearby Khalino military airfield.

The debris of downed drones was seen burning just 1.5km (1 mile) from the air base in images posted on social media. The facility was previously attacked by Ukrainian forces at the end of September.

The debris had fallen in the region’s namesake capital and the nearby village of Zorino, Kursk governor Roman Starovoit said on social media.

Two more drones were shot down over Russia’s Belgorod region, officials said.

Even as the other seven drones remained unaccounted for, Ukrainian media outlets later said that Kyiv’s forces had carried out a successful strike on Russia’s Krasnaya Yaruga electrical substation, close to the Ukrainian border.

The reports cited an unnamed source from within Ukraine’s security services and included a video that appeared to show an aerial strike against an unidentified target.

This comes at a time when fighting has flared up in eastern Ukraine with Russian forces trying to force their way into the Kharkiv region’s Kupiansk city and encircle it, military officials said.

Ukrainian forces in the area, defending the territory, faced 10 separate attacks in a span of 24 hours, Illia Yevlash, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military’s eastern forces said on Sunday.

“The enemy is trying to attack us in the direction of Kupiansk to encircle it and reach the banks of the Oskil River,” he told Ukrainian television. He said that Ukrainian forces in the town of Lyman in the Donetsk region had also faced heavy attack.