KYIV, Ukraine — At least seven people were killed in a Russian missile attack on the city of Vilniansk in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya region and another 11 were seriously injured, including three children, the authorities reported on Saturday evening.
The number of victims may rise further, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted on X.
Zaporizhzhya Governor Ivan Fodorev said that an “object of the critical infrastructure” and several residential blocks had been damaged.
Ukrainian cities and towns were being attacked daily, Zelenskyy said. “We will destroy the terrorists where they are, eliminate Russian launch ramps, hit them with long-range weapons and increase the number of modern anti-aircraft system in Ukraine,” he added.
Earlier, five people in Russia were killed in a drone attack in the region of Kursk, near the border with Ukraine, according to local Russian authorities.
The governor of the Kursk region, Alexei Smirnov, said two small children were among the dead and he blamed Ukraine for the attack.
According to Smirnov, a residential building in the village of Gorodishche was struck in the attack. Two seriously injured people were taken to hospital.
The Kursk region, like the other Russian areas along the border with Ukraine such as Bryansk, Belgorod and Rostov, has been targeted by repeated Ukrainian strikes as the country battles against the ongoing full-scale Russian invasion.
The Ministry of Defense in Moscow announced on Saturday morning that six attacking drones had been shot down overnight in a total of four Russian regions.
Dpa is unable to independently verify information provided by the Russian authorities.
According to Ukraine, the attacks on Russian territory are directed against Russian military positions.
However, civilians have also been repeatedly affected by attacks — for example when debris from downed drones falls to the ground.
The consequences on the Russian side of the border, however, are relatively small compared to the high number of victims and the massive destruction caused by continuous Russian attacks on Ukraine.
Meanwhile Zelenskyy has welcomed the return of Ukrainian prisoners from Russia, including Nariman Dzhelyal, a leader of the Crimean Tatars.
“Ten civilians, plus 90 soldiers were released this week,” Zelenskyy said in a video message. This brought to 3,310 prisoners released to Ukraine from Russian prisons, he said.
“We have to find all our people and return them to Ukraine, every one of them in prison or deported – adults and children, soldiers and civilians,” he said.
Dzhelyal was among the 10 civilians returned on Friday. Zelenskyy held brief talks with the Tatar leader on Saturday. They last met in 2021.
Shortly after that meeting and before the Russian invasion of February 2022, Dzhelyal was arrested in Crimea, which was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. He was subsequently sentenced to 17 years in prison after being found guilty of blowing up a gas pipeline.
Among those released were two priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
No information has been released on whether Russian prisoners were released by the Ukrainians in return.
The last prisoner exchange between Kyiv and Moscow a few days ago included a metropolitan of the pro-Russian Ukrainian Orthodox Church, who received a decoration from Patriarch Kirill on his arrival in Moscow.
