KYIV, Ukraine — Two people were killed after a Russian drone attacked a minibus in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, officials said Saturday, in the latest strike on a civilian area, a hallmark of Moscow’s war on Ukraine.
Seven people were wounded in the attack, regional head Oleksandr Prokudin said. Hours later, Russia attacked another minibus in Kherson, wounding the driver, he said.
Meanwhile, along the northern border with Belarus, Ukraine recorded “rather unusual” activity on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday in a post on Telegram. Without elaborating, he said that activity was seen on the Belarusian side of the border and that Ukraine would act if matters escalated.
“We are closely documenting and keeping the situation under control. If necessary, we will react,” he said.
Belarus, a close ally of the Kremlin, has allowed Russia to use its territory as a staging ground to send troops into Ukraine and to host some of Moscow’s tactical nuclear weapons.
On Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, a Russian strike damaged port infrastructure in the city of Odesa. No casualties were reported.
Ukrainian civilians have endured relentless air assaults since Russia invaded their country more than four years ago. U.S.-brokered talks between Moscow and Kyiv over the last year have brought no respite, with Russia rejecting Ukraine’s offer of a ceasefire, and in recent weeks, the Iran war has diverted U.S. attention from Ukraine’s plight.
Meanwhile, on the roughly 750-mile front line, Russia said Saturday that it had taken control of the village of Myropillia in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region.
It was not possible to independently verify the battlefield claims, and Ukraine did not immediately comment.
In Russia, officials in the Krasnodar region said that a fire that broke out Friday after a Ukrainian strike on an oil terminal in the Black Sea city of Tuapse was put out Saturday.
Ukrainian drones have hit the oil refinery and export terminal in Tuapse on four occasions in just over two weeks, sparking fires that prompted evacuations and sent up massive plumes of smoke.
Ukraine has escalated its long-distance strikes against Russian oil facilities in an effort to slash Moscow’s oil exports, a key source of funding for its grinding invasion of Ukraine. But the economic impact is so far unclear, as the rise in oil prices from the Iran war, and a related easing of U.S. sanctions, have helped replenish the Kremlin’s coffers.
Kullab writes for the Associated Press.