At least 17 people were killed Friday (July 24, 2026) in Russian and Ukrainian long-range strikes — including just outside Kyiv and hundreds of miles east of Moscow — as both sides intensify strikes with diplomacy in a deadlock.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a Russian missile strike outside the Ukrainian capital killed six people, with a rescue operation ongoing and “dozens of people reported to be injured”.

Mr. Zelenskyy also said that Russian aerial bombing killed five people in the frontline city of Sloviansk.

On the same day, Kyiv launched a wave of long-range drone and missile attacks on Russia.

Moscow said an attack on a factory more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the front in the city of Kirov killed six people.

Ukraine also attacked warehouses belonging to Russian online retail giant Wildberries outside Saint Petersburg — targeting Russia’s equivalent of Amazon for the third time this week.

The strikes come as the four-and-a-half-year war has seen more civilians dying this summer than in any period since the first months of Russia’s invasion, according to the United Nations.

Mr. Zelenskyy said Kyiv struck a “key military enterprise” in Russia’s Kirov, saying it “supplies components for the occupier’s aircraft and missile systems, which are used in the massive attacks against ou cities.”

Kirov Governor Alexander Sokolov confirmed Kyiv targeted a “factory” and that the six victims were killed on the spot. Another 26 were wounded.

While Kyiv has hit Russian towns as far as the Urals and Siberia, it has mostly damaged energy infrastructure, with deaths so far into Russia rare.

‘Frightened’

In Saint Petersburg — Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s hometown — the attacks on Wildberries warehouses sent smoke pouring over the historic city.

Mr. Zelenskyy has accused Wildberries — Russia’s most popular online retailer — of storing drone components and helping the Russian army.

He hailed Friday’s strikes as “successful”.

Ukraine has said its retaliatory strikes on Russia aim to weaken Moscow’s war effort and to force the Kremlin to negotiate an end to the fighting.

The attacks on Russia’s main cities were unthinkable when the Kremlin launched its offensive in 2022, believing in a quick victory and promising Russians life back home will not be affected.

In Saint Petersburg, 50-year-old teacher Anna said the strikes only “make people angry”.

“This Ukrainian tactic is not leading to peace, even in my entourage, people are getting angrier and say that if that’s their way, then we should continue (the offensive),” she said.

Ukrainian cities have been under constant Russian attacks since 2022, with civilians dying across Ukraine every day during the war.

None of that is visible in Russian media, with Moscow introducing massive censorship during the war and banning criticism of its military campaign.

Svetlana, a 30-year-old cashier in Saint Petersburg, said she was “frightened” and that “everything is getting worse”.

She said Ukraine was to blame: “Of course I want peace, but you see what they (Ukrainians) are doing.”

Russia occupies swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, with Moscow not dropping its maximalist demands to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine.

Russian aerial bombs

Hours after Ukraine’s attack on Saint Petersburg, AFP reporters in Kyiv heard blasts over the city, after authorities warned of incoming Russian missiles — a rare attempted daytime strike on the Ukrainian capital.

Russia has in recent weeks launched several waves of deadly ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv.

In Ukraine’s Sloviansk, local governor Vadym Filashkin said Moscow had “dropped two aerial bombs on the city”. The city, which had a pre-war population of some 105,000, lies close to the frontline and is in Moscow’s sights.

Sloviansk became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance in 2014, when it briefly fell to pro-Russia separatists before Kyiv retook control of the city.

The UN said this week that civilian casualties in the Russia-Ukraine war rose 37 percent in the first half of this year — “almost double” what was documented in 2024.

Published – July 24, 2026 07:32 pm IST

In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on September 25, 2024, Russian soldiers carry an ammunition to their Pion self-propelled cannon to fire towards Ukrainian positions at an undisclosed location.
| Photo Credit: AP

Russia’s army said Wednesday (September 25, 2024) it had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine, the latest gains for its advancing troops.

Moscow’s soldiers have claimed a series of territorial gains in the area over the course of 2024, pressing on even as Kyiv mounts its own cross-border offensive into Russian territory.

Also read | Zelenskyy warns of nuclear risk, urges countries to accept his peace plan

The Defence Ministry in Moscow said its troops had “liberated the settlements” of Gostre and Grigorivka in the Donetsk region, in a statement posted on Telegram.

Gostre is a small village located 30 kilometres (18 miles) west of Donetsk city, the capital of a region Moscow claims to have annexed.

Grigorivka lies close to the hilltop town of Chasiv Yar, another key Russian target.

Donetsk regional governor Vadym Filashkin acknowledged Wednesday that Russian troops were trying to break through Ukraine’s defences and enter Vugledar, a former coal mining town further south in the Donetsk region.

“Some Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups are trying to break into the city, but Ukrainian soldiers are destroying these groups,” the governor said.

“About 100 people remain in the town and refuse to leave. It is impossible to deliver humanitarian aid to them because the enemy is shooting at all roads,” Filashkin added.

Military experts have already reported that Ukraine faces a precarious situation in Vugledar.

“It is highly likely that Russian forces now threaten the town from three sides,” Britain’s defence intelligence unit said Wednesday.

The Institute for the Study of War said Tuesday that the possible “capture of Vugledar is unlikely to afford Russian forces any particular operational edge for further offensive operations”.

Ukraine’s General Staff did not respond to a request to comment on the situation in the town.

The Ukrainian brigade that holds the town and the larger command unit fighting in the region both declined to comment.