Russian aerial attacks on Monday left five civilians dead and destroyed a kindergarten in eastern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian authorities. The strikes are part of Moscow’s intensified drone and missile campaign, which has increasingly targeted energy infrastructure and residential areas as winter approaches.
In Balakliya, a frontline city in the Kharkiv region, three people were killed and 13 injured when a residential neighbourhood was hit. Emergency officials reported that four children were among the wounded. First Lady Olena Zelenska condemned the attack, describing it as “inhuman” after several apartment buildings and a kindergarten were left badly damaged.
Later in the day, two more civilians were killed in the Dnipropetrovsk region during another Russian strike. Meanwhile, in Odesa’s Black Sea port of Izmail, a Turkish-flagged gas cargo vessel caught fire after being struck by Russian drones, the Ukrainian port authority said.
The latest escalation comes just a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a gas-import deal with Greece via the Trans-Balkan pipeline. It also follows Moscow’s massive October bombardment on Ukrainian gas facilities, which cut the country’s heating-fuel production by 60 percent. In response, Kyiv has continued to hit Russian fuel depots and refineries, while Russian-installed authorities in occupied Donetsk reported temporary power outages affecting about 500,000 subscribers after a Ukrainian strike.
