Russian drones have struck a border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova in the southern Odesa region, killing at least two people, and also targeted the capital, Kyiv, overnight, according to Ukrainian authorities. Two civilians were killed and three others were injured in the attack near the Starokozache crossing, Governor Oleh Kiper said on Wednesday in a post on Telegram. Passenger and vehicle traffic were temporarily halted across the border after the attack, which caused a fire, officials said. Russia also attacked Kyiv overnight, causing fires but no casualties, emergency services said in a Telegram post. The Russian defence ministry said its forces had struck a Ukrainian cargo vessel carrying military equipment in the Black Sea en route to the port of Odesa, as well as a warehouse in Kyiv, belonging allegedly to a company manufacturing drones, Russian news agencies reported.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported a Russian drone strike on a 16-storey building early on Wednesday, saying emergency responders were heading to the site. Russian air strikes also damaged port, transport and civilian infrastructure in the Mykolaiv region, in an attack that killed one and left several people injured, a local official said on Telegram. Moscow resumed its near-constant air attacks on Kyiv on Tuesday after a brief halt during the visit of US peace negotiators. Officials said five people were killed in the capital.
Meanwhile, Russian forces shot down 596 Ukrainian drones during the night, the defence ministry said Wednesday. The attacks left four dead in Novorossiysk in the southern Krasnodar region, governor Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram. Mayor Andrei Kravchenko said drone debris fell on the premises of a number of businesses and close to an inhabited building in Novorossiysk late on Tuesday. Ukrainian authorities confirmed attacks in the area, saying that military vessels at a naval base in Novorossiysk were hit overnight, the commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, said.
Brovdi said missile carriers were among the vessels “lost” at the base, but did not say how many vessels had been struck. Novorossiysk, a frequent target of Ukrainian drone strikes, is a major outlet for Russian oil, oil products and grain exports, among other commodities.
