Two killed in Russian strikes on gas stations in Kyiv, three killed in Ukraine strikes on Russia

Russia struck two Kyiv petrol stations with jet-powered drones early on Friday, killing two people in an escalation of operations that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned were becoming “increasingly terrorist in nature”.

Three additional persons died in Russian strikes in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions and in the northeastern Kharkiv area, the governors of the territories said.

Ukraine also hit Russia with drones, killing two people overnight in the Tula region and one on Friday in the Kursk region, local officials claimed.

As fighting on the front line has mostly stagnated more than 4-1/2 years into the war in Ukraine, Russia and Ukraine have increasingly targeted logistics and other economic targets in recent weeks in an effort to weaken the other’s war effort.

For two weeks, Russia has been launching virtually continual strikes with faster jet-powered drones that have killed a number of Kyiv people and disturbed daily life in Ukraine’s capital. The strikes were stopped during a weekend trip to Kyiv by U.S. peace negotiators Steve ⁠Witkoff and Jared Kushner, then resumed.“Gradually, Russia’s escalation with jet-powered ‘shaheds’ is becoming more and more terrorist in nature,” Zelenskiy stated on X.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, sparking a war in which both sides say they are not targeting civilians.

ATTACKS ON FUEL STATIONS

The two people at one of the two petrol stations assaulted in Kyiv were killed by the double-tap hit, officials added.

Friday’s strikes came after what looked to be the first attack on a Kyiv petrol station the day before. Russia has struck some 300 petrol stations in the past few months, mostly in or near Ukraine’s frontline districts.There is no military goal to such strikes. “Terror of the civilian population,” claimed Bohdan Kukura, CEO of Ukrainian oil major Ukrnafta.

Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, claimed another 12 people had been hurt in Kyiv, including a 12-year-old boy. Eight individuals were injured overnight in an attack on a residential complex in Kyiv.

Russia struck a building used by Ukraine’s main mobile operator Kyivstar (KYIV.O) in Kyiv and there were strikes in eight other Ukrainian districts, Zelenskiy added. Kyivstar’s network continued to work, the company stated.

The regional governor reported one woman was slain in the Kyiv region near the capital.

One person was murdered and 19 injured in attacks across the Dnipropetrovsk area, governor Oleksandr Hanzha said. All except one of the injured was in the city of Dnipro.

In southeastern Ukraine, one person was murdered in a Russian attack against the city of Zaporizhzhia. A drone strike killed one person in the city of Kharkiv, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov stated.

The Belgorod region of Russia, a common target for Ukrainian forces, reported a Ukrainian drone attack killed one person. And the Moscow-backed leader of Russian-controlled sections of the eastern Donetsk province reported two workers for a local gas business were murdered in a drone strike.

RISING STRIKE NUMBER

Ukraine has struck at Russia’s main online merchants and oil refineries, frequently deep inside Russia, as well as energy and fuel logistics in parts of its own territory controlled by Russian soldiers.

“Ukrainian forces struck an enterprise and an oil industry facility in the Saratov and Volgograd regions,” Zelenskiy stated. He also reported strikes on unspecified locations elsewhere in the country and on the Black Sea.

Two people were killed and three injured in Ukrainian drone assaults overnight, Tula area governor Dmitry Milyayev said. The governor reported a 37-year-old male was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike in the Kursk region.

Russian e-commerce company Ozon says a fire at its logistics hub in the central city of Saratov was started by a drone.

More than two dozen warehouses owned by Ozon and another online store, Wildberries, have been damaged in recent attacks that Ukraine says are part of a campaign targeting the economic infrastructure backing Russia’s conflict.

Ukraine’s military said it struck an oil facility in Saratov.

Local authorities reported two persons were injured in a missile strike on two residential structures and an industrial complex in Volgograd, south of Saratov on the Volga River, but did not name the industrial facility.