Russian missile and drone strikes killed at least 21 people, including children, and wounded hundreds more across Ukraine on Tuesday, as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Netherlands for a NATO summit.
A missile strike on the eastern city of Dnipro killed at least 19 people and injured nearly 300 others, according to regional authorities. Hours earlier, a separate drone attack killed 3 people, including a five-year-old boy, in the northeastern Sumy region.
Emergency services in the Dnipropetrovsk region released images showing rescuers aiding bloodied civilians. The regional governor, Serhiy Lysak, said two more people were killed and nine injured in the nearby town of Samar.
“This is probably one of the most brazen strikes against Dnipro since the start of the full-scale war,” Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov said.
The missile strikes damaged a passenger train, schools and medical facilities in Dnipro, as Russian forces continue to press toward the region’s border, seeking to gain a foothold there for the first time since launching the invasion over three years ago.
The attacks came as Zelensky arrived in The Hague to attend the NATO defense summit, where he is expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday to discuss new sanctions on Russia and weapons deliveries, Ukrainian sources told AFP.
“While leaders gather in The Hague for the NATO summit, Russia sends a message of terror and rejection of peace,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said. “It is a matter of credibility for allies to step up pressure on Moscow.”
In Sumy, three people were killed overnight in a drone strike that destroyed several homes, local officials said. Oleh Hryhorov, head of the regional military administration, said a five-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble of a destroyed house.
“The strike took the lives of people from different families. They all lived on the same street. They went to sleep in their homes, but the Russian drones interrupted their sleep — forever,” Hryhorov said.
The strikes came a day after Ukraine said Russian drone and missile attacks killed 10 people in Kyiv and targeted multiple regions.
Meanwhile, in Russia, authorities said Tuesday that one man was killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on the southwestern Belgorod region.
A Ukrainian drone had also targeted a residential building in the Moscow region overnight, wounding two people, including a pregnant woman.
Around 100 people were forced to leave the apartment building, according to regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov. Two more drones were shot down, he added.
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