3 killed in Russian strikes across Ukraine as Kyiv struggles to counter escalating attacks

KYIV, Ukraine — Russian strikes killed three people and wounded at least eight across Ukraine, officials said Friday, as Ukraine struggles to counter escalating Russian bombardments that have killed more than 50 people over the past three days.

One man was killed and five people were wounded in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region in the morning hours, said Mykhailo Semikin, the head of the regional military administration. He said the attacks hit residential areas and that a child was among the wounded.

Another man was killed in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, Svitlana Onyshchuk, head of the regional military administration, reported.

A woman was also killed in a Russian attack on warehouse facilities in the district of Bucha in the Kyiv region, Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said on Telegram.

Her body was found while clearing rubble and fighting a fire at the site, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration, said Friday. Three people were wounded there.

Russia and Ukraine are locked in a long-range aerial war while their armies remain largely deadlocked on the front line, more than four-and-a-half years since Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

Elsewhere, a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s eastern Belgorod region killed two people Friday, the area’s regional emergency headquarters said.

Regional governor Alexander Shuvayev said that 12 people had been wounded in Ukrainian strikes.

Zelensky appeals for NATO support

Russian attacks have killed dozens of civilians across Ukraine over the past three days using a mix of ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones.

On Thursday, a Russian guided bomb exploded next to public buses filled with passengers in eastern Ukraine, killing 30 people.

A day earlier, a Russian missile strike killed 22 people, including five children, in the northern Ukrainian town of Pryluky.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that Moscow will likely escalate daily attacks as winter approaches, putting pressure on Ukraine as it prepares for winter and hitting the infrastructure keeping its war-battered economy afloat.

Recent Russian targets have included energy systems, key industries, railways, post offices, shopping centers, telecom networks, gas stations and grain exports.

The Ukrainian leader held a meeting with military officials and government members on Friday focusing on Ukraine’s energy and air defense needs.

“Unfortunately, there is a lot of damage to the power grid and electricity transmission facilities,” he wrote on Telegram. “Repairs are going on around the clock.”

The Kyiv city administration said on Telegram Friday that the Ukrainian capital would again set up government-built help stations that serve food and drinks and provide warmth and power — known as “points of invincibility” — in three districts of the city where the power situation was most difficult.

Zelensky appealed on Thursday for additional defense support from NATO countries, saying in an online post: “It is important that support in words takes concrete form in new packages for Ukraine’s defense.”

“Supplies of anti-ballistic capabilities, ammunition for our combat aircraft and investments in interceptors — all of this is directly helping save lives every day,” he said.

Without ammunition for its US-made Patriot air defense systems, Ukraine can’t stop Russian ballistic weapons. It is racing to develop a new generation of interceptors fast enough to catch Moscow’s high-flying jet-propelled drones.

Ukraine targets Russian data centers

Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone strike damaged a data center belonging to Russian technology giant Yandex, the company confirmed.

“As a result of a drone attack, part of Yandex data center infrastructure in Kaluga was affected. Several data center modules are completely out of service. This may cause some Yandex services to experience disruptions,” Yandex’s press service said and added it was “currently assessing the full extent of the damage.”

It also said that nobody had been injured.

It is the second time in two days that the company has been targeted, with an earlier drone attack Thursday taking a data center in Russia’s western Ryazan region offline.

Zelensky confirmed the data center strike in a post on X. He also said that Kyiv’s forces had hit the Ukhta oil refinery in Russia’s Komi region.

The region’s head, Rostislav Goldstein, said earlier on Friday that there had been an attack on the town of Ukhta, but that there had been no damage.

The governor of the Kaluga region, Vladislav Shapsha, said Friday that nine people had been wounded by drone attacks on the region.

Meanwhile, Tver regional governor Vitaly Korolyov said a Ukrainian drone sparked a fire at a factory in Redkino. No casualties were reported.