Russian drone attack kills two in Ukraine’s Donetsk region

KYIV: Russian drones struck a multi-storey apartment building in the front line town of Chasiv Yar in the Donetsk region of Ukraine on Thursday, killing two people and injuring two, regional prosecutors said.

Chasiv Yar has been under attack by Russian forces for many m onths, the focus of Russia’s drive westward to capture the Donbas, which also includes Luhansk region. The town lies west of Bakhmut, a regional centre which fell to Russian forces in May 2023 after months of heavy fighting.

Regional officials in Dnipropetrovsk region, further west, said a drone strike on the market in the town of Nikopol injured eight people on Thursday morning.

Seven of those injured were treated in hospital after the strike damaged stalls at the market, Dnipropetrovsk governor Serhiy Lysak wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Nikopol, a frequent target of Russian attacks, lies on the opposite bank of a large reservoir from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

Russian forces struck an industrial area of the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram. No injuries were reported.

The attacks in Ukraine’s east come after Russia’s Christmas Day attack on the country’s energy system, killing one person in Dnipropetrovsk region.

The Ukrainian military said on Thursday it shot down 20 drones out of 31 launched by Russia overnight.