Overnight Russian drone attacks injured at least 31 people in Ukraine, officials said Friday, just hours after Kyiv and Washington signed a landmark minerals agreement aimed at strengthening U.S.-Ukraine ties amid the ongoing war.
Zaporizhzhia, a key industrial city in southeastern Ukraine, bore the brunt of the strikes with 29 civilians wounded, including a 13-year-old boy, according to regional governor Ivan Fedorov. The attack damaged residential buildings, a university, and a vital infrastructure facility.
Elsewhere, two more civilians were injured in Dnipropetrovsk region following Russian drone hits that sparked fires at two locations, said Governor Sergiy Lysak.
Ukraine’s national railway company reported that its locomotive repair plant in Zaporizhzhia was also targeted, igniting a fire that burned for hours, though no injuries were recorded.
In response, Russia’s defence ministry claimed its air defences intercepted 121 Ukrainian drones, most over Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014.
The fresh escalation follows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s announcement of a new U.S. minerals deal, which he described as offering “equal” benefits for both nations, though it lacks concrete security guarantees. Zelensky urged allies to increase pressure on Russia to bring it to the negotiating table.
