11 killed in latest attacks in Russia and Ukraine

Open this photo in gallery:Rescuers and employers work at a site of the drinking water delivery company hit by a Russian air strike, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine July 25.Stringer/ReutersMoscow-installed officials said Saturday Ukrainian forces attacked holiday camps in the partly Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, killing eight people, while authorities in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region said a Russian drone strike killed three people.The strikes followed a major Russian attack on Friday near Kyiv that killed at least 10 people and wounded nearly 100 others, a relentless cycle of tit-for-tat attacks that dims the potential of reaching a diplomatic end to Russia’s more than 4-year-old invasion of its neighbour.Two children were among the eight people killed in the attack on the resorts in Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, the Kremlin-installed regional head, said Saturday, adding that 14 people were wounded.Ukraine did not immediately comment on the attack.Sumy regional head Oleh Hryhorov said on Saturday three people were killed when a large fire broke out after a Russian drone struck a “civilian facility,” adding that the victims were drivers for private Ukrainian postal and courier service Nova Poshta.Opinion: The question facing Ukrainians in Canada and abroad: Should they stay or should they go?Russia’s defence ministry said it attacked a “storage and launch site” for Ukrainian drones in the Sumy region.In Zaporizhzhia, in southeastern Ukraine, a Russian drone attack late Friday hit a shopping centre, causing a fire that spread over a 500-square-meter area and injuring several people, regional head Ivan Fedorov said.Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in his evening address on Friday that intelligence assessments indicated that Russia was preparing missiles for a large attack, saying there were indications that this could happen in the next 48 hours.On Saturday, Romania’s defence ministry said its forces “safely shot down” a drone that breached its airspace in an “unpopulated area” near the Ukrainian border. The drone was “shot down by a Romanian pilot from an F-16 aircraft,” President Nicușor Dan said in a post on Facebook.Saturday’s interception came after a drone was shot down around Padina, northeast of the Romanian capital, Bucharest, on Friday.A series of drone incursions by Russia and Ukraine have hit Romania and other NATO members since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.In June, a Ukrainian maritime drone exploded at the Black Sea port of Constanta, while three other sea drones exploded outside the port. No one was hurt.A Russian drone that was part of an attack on Ukraine in May went astray and struck an apartment building in eastern Romania, injuring two people.