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Odesa and Kharkiv strikes
Russia’s strikes and Ukraine’s drone attacks killed civilians and injured many others overnight, with Kharkiv and Odesa among the hardest-hit Ukrainian cities.
“killing two people and injuring 13”
In Kharkiv’s Saltivskyi district, a Russian missile struck a high-rise apartment building, killing two people and injuring 13, according to regional head Oleh Syniehubov.
In Odesa, “dozens of missiles and drones” hit the city and surrounding region, injuring eight people, regional administration head Oleh Kiper said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the Russians were “at war with the world's food security” after Odesa’s seaport was damaged, and he said around 219 missiles and drones attacked Ukraine last night, including 202 Shahed drones.
The Independent also said air defences shot down 174 drones and five cruise missiles, while Turkey’s foreign minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara had conveyed to Russia and Ukraine they should declare a moratorium on their attacks in Black Sea.
Patriot shortage and claims
Ukrainian officials framed the latest exchange of strikes through the lens of air defence shortages, with the Times of India saying Russia has intensified missile attacks by exploiting Kyiv’s shortage of interceptors for US-made Patriot systems.
The Times of India added that Patriots are “the only system in Ukraine's arsenal capable of intercepting ballistic missiles,” and it said Zelenskyy has repeatedly urged the US and other countries to provide more Patriot systems.
In parallel, Russia’s defence ministry claimed its overnight strikes targeted drone warehouses in the Kharkiv region and fuel depots and other materiel at the port of Odesa, while also saying it shot down 153 Ukrainian drones overnight.
Reuters reported that Russia’s defence ministry said it destroyed more than 150 Ukrainian drones over the European part of the country, as well as over the Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.
Zelenskyy, meanwhile, continued to press for additional air defence, telling the Independent that “a decision has been made for 30,000 `to 50,000 North Koreans to be deployed on the territory of Russia,” and urging Seoul to provide support for Ukraine’s air defence systems.
Healthcare and wider war
Beyond battlefield strikes, the BBC focused on attacks reaching medical responders, describing how Inna Lytvynenko said she ran because she “knew that if I stopped, I would die” after Russian drones targeted her ambulance in Kherson.
“"I knew that if I stopped, I would die."”
The BBC quoted WHO representative Dr Jarno Habicht saying the WHO has registered 3,118 attacks on healthcare since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022, and it said that in 2024 attacks on healthcare went up by 30%.
The BBC also reported that a recent Doctors Without Borders (MSF) report said Russia systematically and often deliberately targets Ukrainian medical facilities, and it described the pattern as a “sustained feature of the war rather than an episodic consequence of large scale offensives.”
In a separate thread of the war’s wider impact, the Guardian reported that Ukrainian long-range drones hit a Wildberries warehouse in Ekaterinburg, with the Kremlin’s representative in the region, Artyom Zhoga, saying 800 people were evacuated and nobody was hurt.
The Guardian also said Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting of Russia’s security council and told participants it would focus on additional measures to “strengthen … protection of infrastructure facilities,” while Zelenskyy thanked the US Senate for passing a bill backing sweeping energy sanctions on Russia.
