Russian and Ukrainian drone and missile strikes killed at least five people across both nations on Saturday, officials reported. The latest attacks occurred a day after a Russian drone strike on a shopping center in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine, killed 16 people.
In the capital, Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that one person died and another was injured when ballistic missiles struck railway infrastructure overnight. Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed its forces hit a locomotive depot. Local authorities also reported that a separate Russian ballistic missile strike in the Kyiv region killed one person on Saturday afternoon.
Moscow has recently increased its use of ballistic missiles against Kyiv, a tactic that exploits Ukraine's severe shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defense interceptors, which are currently the only system in Ukraine's arsenal capable of intercepting these types of missiles.
In the Zaporizhzhia region, Russian drone strikes killed one person overnight in a village, according to local officials. Zelenskyy noted that three people were injured in an attack on a minibus in the regional capital, also named Zaporizhzhia.
Across the border in Russia's southern Krasnodar region, authorities said that two children were killed and two adults were injured in a Ukrainian drone strike.
The dual attacks follow a Friday strike in Kryvyi Rih, President Zelenskyy's hometown. The death toll from the attack on the shopping center rose to 16 by Saturday morning, with nine people still missing and another 130 wounded. Zelenskyy described the incident as a "double-tap strike," where an initial wave of drones was followed by a second as rescue workers arrived. Firefighters extinguished a blaze that had spread across approximately 97,000 square feet, and rescue operations were ongoing.
Kryvyi Rih has been targeted multiple times during the ongoing conflict. In April 2025, a strike there killed 20 people, including nine children.
This summer has seen a regular pattern of large-scale Russian strikes. The attacks on Friday occurred just 24 hours after Russia launched a significant missile and drone assault on Kyiv, which resulted in 16 fatalities. In recent weeks, the capital has been repeatedly hit, with 17 deaths reported in a strike on Kyiv and its surrounding region just over two weeks prior, and nine more in another attack days before that. The United Nations reported last week that Kyiv was among the most heavily impacted cities in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 injured.
Concurrently, Ukraine has extended the conflict onto Russian territory through long-range drone strikes targeting oil facilities, which have contributed to fuel shortages within Russia. These strikes have also impacted the Russian public by hitting warehouses belonging to Wildberries, the country's largest online retailer. The Russian online news outlet Astra reported on Saturday that a Ukrainian drone ignited an oil refinery in the Samara region. Local officials confirmed damage to an unspecified "industrial facility" and a logistics center for Ozon, a competitor to Wildberries.