Three killed in Russian drone attack on Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia
The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired 179 exploding drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks.
Russia has launched a drone attack on the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing three people and wounding 14, local officials said, despite a limited ceasefire.
Zaporizhzhia was hit by 12 drones, police said, and regional chief Ivan Fedorov added that residential buildings, cars and communal buildings were set on fire in the Friday night attack.
Ukraine and Russia agreed in principle on Wednesday to a limited ceasefire after US President Donald Trump spoke with the countries’ leaders, though it remains to be seen what targets would be off-limits to attack.
The three sides appeared to hold starkly different views about what the deal covered. The White House said “energy and infrastructure” would be part of the agreement, but the Kremlin declared that the agreement referred more narrowly to “energy infrastructure”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would also like railways and ports to be protected.
The dead in Zaporizhzhia were three members of one family. The bodies of a daughter and father were pulled from the rubble while doctors unsuccessfully fought to save the mother for more than 10 hours, Mr Fedorov said.
The Ukrainian air force reported that Russia fired a total of 179 drones and decoys in the latest wave of attacks overnight into Saturday. It said 100 were intercepted and a further 63 lost, likely to be as a result of being electronically jammed.
Officials in the Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk regions also reported fires breaking out due to falling debris from intercepted drones.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defence systems shot down 47 Ukrainian drones.
Local authorities said two people were injured and there was damage to six apartments when a Ukrainian drone hit a high-rise apartment block in the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don on Friday night.
Mr Zelensky told reporters after Wednesday’s call with Mr Trump that Ukraine and US negotiators will discuss technical details related to the partial ceasefire during a meeting in Saudi Arabia on Monday.
Russian negotiators are set to hold separate talks with US officials there.
Mr Zelensky emphasised that Ukraine is open to the full, 30-day ceasefire proposed by Mr Trump, saying: “We will not be against any format, any steps toward unconditional ceasefire.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a complete ceasefire conditional on a halt of arms supplies to Kyiv and a suspension of Ukraine’s military mobilisation — demands rejected by Ukraine and its western allies.
Kremlin spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Saturday that Ukraine was continuing with “treacherous attacks” on energy infrastructure facilities, and that Russia reserved the right to a “symmetrical” response.
Her comments came after Russia accused Ukrainian forces on Friday of blowing up a gas metering station near the town of Sudzha in Russia’s Kursk region.
Ukraine’s military General Staff rejected Moscow’s accusations and blamed the Russian military for shelling the station as part of Moscow’s “discrediting campaign”.
