KYIV — Russian attacks killed at least nine civilians in southeastern and central Ukraine early Tuesday, local officials said, extending one of the most intense stretches of bombardment of the war.
Six people were killed and about 20 wounded in the city of Zaporizhzhia, officials said. Three more civilians were killed by Russian drones and artillery in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, according to the daily briefing compiled by Just Security.
The strikes follow a week in which President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired 61 missiles, more than 1,560 attack drones and roughly 1,540 guided aerial bombs at Ukrainian cities. Twenty-seven people were killed in Kyiv alone during that period.
Ukraine has answered with an intensified long-range campaign against Russian energy and industrial sites. Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defenses destroyed or intercepted 456 Ukrainian drones overnight into Monday across 16 regions, the Kyiv Post reported, in one of the largest such operations Kyiv has mounted.
Authorities in Tatarstan said 12 people were killed and 39 injured in that wave, and Ukrainian sources reported a fire at the Nizhnekamsk oil refinery, a claim that has not been independently verified.
Neither side has signaled movement toward negotiations. The escalation has continued through a summer in which international attention has largely shifted to the confrontation between the United States and Iran.