Six killed and dozens injured amid Russian strikes on Ukraine

Moscow has intensified strikes that have long tormented civilian areas, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky said, in an apparent effort to unnerve Ukrainians and wear down their willingness to keep up a war that is approaching its 1,000-day milestone.

Mr Zelensky said in a post on the Telegram messaging app: “Every day, every night, Russia commits the same terror. Except that an increasing number of civilian objects are becoming targets.”

Both Russia and Ukraine are waiting to see how Washington will change its policy on the war after Donald Trump takes office as US president in January.

The US is the biggest provider of military help to Ukraine but Mr Trump has chided Joe Biden’s administration for giving Kyiv tens of billions of dollars of aid.

The Ukrainian army intends to expand its mobile units, which are primarily tasked with shooting down drones, in the regions most frequently targeted by Russian strikes, Mr Zelensky said on Telegram.

He also said that Ukraine is working on producing its own glide bombs as part of a domestic missile programme. Russian glide bombs have significantly impacted the battlefield, as their destructive power reduces settlements to rubble and makes it increasingly difficult for Ukrainian forces to hold their defensive fortifications.

Ukrainian forces are being slowly pushed backward in the eastern Donetsk region, where Russia is bringing its greater military might to bear. Mr Zelensky said Ukraine would conduct a “substantial reinforcement” in areas near the Donetsk settlements of Kurakhove and Pokrovsk, where Ukraine’s army is in danger of being overrun.

Mr Zelensky added that Ukraine is holding its positions in Russia’s Kursk border region, where western and Ukrainian officials say Russia is being helped by thousands of newly arrived North Korean troops. He said Russia has deployed some 50,000 troops to Kursk.

Also in Donetsk, near the settlement of Hirnyk that was recently captured, the Russians have damaged a dam at the Kurakhiv reservoir, regional governor Vadym Filashkin said.

The local water level in the Vovcha River has risen by 1.2 metres, though no homes have been affected, and possible flooding threatens both the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions, he said.

The development revived memories of the collapse of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine in June 2023, killing hundreds of people. An Associated Press investigation found the collapse was likely caused by Russian forces.

The major cities struck by Russia are close to the war’s 600-mile front line.

Russian drones hammered the southern city of Mykolaiv, killing five people and injuring a 45-year-old woman, local authorities said. Around two dozen people sought psychological help following the attack that damaged houses and stores, officials said.

Mykolaiv, located about 37 miles north-west of the front line in the Kherson region, frequently comes under Russian attack.

An overnight attack on Zaporizhzhia, also in the south, with three powerful glide bombs killed one person and injured 21, including a four-year-old boy, Ukraine’s National Police said.

The strikes partially destroyed a two-storey apartment building and damaged a dormitory.

A five-storey apartment building in Kryvyi Rih – Mr Zelensky’s hometown in central Ukraine – was hit by a Russian ballistic missile, injuring at least eight people.

Emergency services are searching through the rubble, Oleksandr Vikul, head of Kryviy Rih Military Administration said.

The missile destroyed all five storeys in one part of the building, he added.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s intelligence agency claimed in a statement it destroyed a Russian Mi-24 assault helicopter parked at the Klin-5 airfield in the Moscow region. The claim could not be independently verified.

The Russian Defence Ministry said 17 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the Russian regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh overnight and in the morning.