At least thirteen people were killed and around fifty others were wounded in Russian strikes across various parts of Ukrainian territory on Wednesday, according to announcements by local authorities.
More than four years after Russia’s military invasion, the two sides exchange daily strikes whose intensity has been escalating for months, claiming the lives of many civilians.
According to data compiled by UN agencies, last month — June — was the second deadliest for civilians in Ukraine, surpassed only by April 2022.
In Sumy (northeast), three people were killed and 17 were wounded, including a 16-year-old teenager, following the dropping of Russian glide bombs, announced Oleh Hryhоrov, the regional governor of the area bordering Russia, via Telegram.
The Odesa region (southwest) was targeted by missiles and drones from Russian armed forces for the fifth consecutive day, with the strikes killing three people and wounding eight others, regional governor Oleh Kiper announced via Telegram.
Throughout the day, local authorities and Ukrainian emergency services also reported one fatality in the Mykolaiv region (south), one in Kryvyi Rih (east), and two deaths in the Donetsk region (east) — the latter now almost entirely under Russian military control.
In the Zaporizhzhia region (south), Russian strikes killed three people and wounded 15 others, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service announced.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian armed forces deployed 122 drones, claiming it shot down 101 of them, along with two missiles.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence, for its part, announced that it had targeted the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk, and Dnipro, “which are used for supplying Ukrainian armed forces.”
It also stated that it had carried out attacks on fuel storage facilities, drone manufacturing plants, and military resupply vessels.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian armed forces have intensified their attacks in recent days against cargo vessels in the Sea of Azov — a vital maritime route for Russian agricultural exports as well as for supplying the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014.
The attacks have prompted Moscow to begin exploring “alternative transport routes,” Russia’s Ministry of Agriculture stated on Tuesday.
ANA-MPA
