Russian and Ukrainian artillery fire overnight killed at least six people, authorities said.
For its part, Moscow’s second-largest airport briefly suspended flights early Sunday after a foiled drone strike near the Russian capital.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 70 drones and attack missiles, including cruise missiles from aircraft over the Caspian Sea and Iranian-made Shahed-136/131 attack unmanned aerial vehicles.
Serhiy Tyurin, deputy head of the military administration of Ukraine’s Khmelnitsky region, said three series of missiles hit the Starokonstantinov area, damaging infrastructure and igniting a warehouse fire. Authorities believe the attack was aimed at the city’s airfield.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said aircraft engine maker Motor Sich’s facilities in the Zaporizhia region were also attacked.
The Russian response came after a Ukrainian drone strike on a Russian tanker in the Black Sea near Crimea on Friday night. Ukraine also attacked a major Russian port with drones earlier that day.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned what she called a Ukrainian “terrorist attack” on a civilian ship in the Kerch Strait.
“There can be no justification for such barbaric actions, they will not go unchallenged and their authors and perpetrators will inevitably be punished,” Zakharova posted on the Telegram messaging app.
A Ukrainian Security Service official confirmed to The Associated Press that a Ukrainian drone loaded with 450 kilograms (992 pounds) of explosive struck the tanker carrying fuel for Russian forces. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
Russia’s Federal Agency for Maritime and River Transport posted on Telegram that although the drone ripped a hole in the tanker’s engine room, there were no casualties among the 11 crew members.
Two of the six deaths that occurred overnight on Sunday were recorded during a Russian airstrike in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, according to the head of the local regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov. Four other people were injured.
Zelenskyy said a guided bomb hit a blood transfusion center in the Kupyan district of the area late on August 5.
“This war crime alone says everything about Russian aggression,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. “Defeating terrorists is a matter of honor for all who value life.”
Heavy shelling continued along the front line in eastern Ukraine as kyiv pushed forward with its ongoing counteroffensive.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
