Strikes killed 19 people in Russia and Ukraine, authorities said Sunday (August 16, 2026), as waves of drones and missiles pummelled civilian infrastructure on both sides.

With fighting at the front at a near standstill and talks frozen, the warring countries have significantly stepped up long-range attacks deep behind each other’s lines, pushing the civilian death toll to its highest levels since the war’s first months in 2022.

In Russia, swarms of Ukrainian drones killed five people in a residential area of the southern Rostov region, regional governor Yuri Slusar said.

Three more people were killed in the Belgorod, Kursk and Moscow regions, along with four others in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia.

Moscow’s regional governor Andrey Vorobyov described the assault as “one of the most massive drone attacks in recent memory”. Russia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted 822 drones across the country overnight.

Kyiv market hit

In Ukraine, a barrage of Russian drones and missiles killed two people and wounded 14 at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown.

The plant, one of Ukraine’s biggest steel producers, said it partially halted operations after the strike damaged its core production facilities.

Another strike hit Kryvyi Rih on Sunday evening (August 16, 2026), killing one person.

Strikes also hit other regions, killing two people in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, one in the border region of Sumy and another in Donetsk in the east.

In Kyiv, a popular outdoor book market at Pochaina, long the place to find rare and antiquarian volumes, was struck. Bookseller Dmytro Semenukha saw all four of his stalls burn to the ground.

“There used to be a store. And books, and flags of all the countries, all the countries. Tonnes of everything. And that’s it,” the 45-year-old told AFP.

In a social media post on the overnight raid, Mr. Zelenskyy said that “wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure”.

Over the past week, he said, Ukrainian cities had been pummelled by “more than 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided aerial bombs, and 62 missiles”, as he renewed his appeal to allies for more air defence.

Russia has carried out near-daily missile and drone strikes across Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in early 2022.

It has recently intensified attacks using hard-to-intercept ballistic missiles, exploiting Ukraine’s air defence shortages after the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran diverted supplies.

“When North Korean ballistic missiles destroy infrastructure and claim lives here in Europe, European interceptors cannot simply be allowed to sit in storage,” Mr. Zelenskyy said.

At least 10 people were killed in Ukrainian attacks on Russia and Moscow-occupied territory, local officials said on Friday (July 4, 2026), as Ukraine reported five killed in Russian attacks.

The exchange of deadly strikes comes a day after Russia unleashed an overnight pummelling — one of the worst of the conflict — on Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, leaving at least 30 dead.

On Friday (July 4, 2026), a Ukrainian strike on a market in the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed five people, the Kremlin-appointed governor said.

“This is a strike against civilian life — against people who had come to buy groceries,” Yevgeny Balitsky said on Telegram.

He earlier said three people had been killed in separate attacks in the region.

Two other people died in strikes on Russia’s western Belgorod and Bryansk regions, both bordering Ukraine, officials said.

Ukraine, meanwhile, reported a strike on its northeastern region of Sumy that set a house ablaze and killed four people — including a toddler.

“Sadly, two women, an elderly man, and a small child — a girl not yet two years old — were killed. The Russian strike took her life along with her mother’s,” the head of the Sumy regional military administration, Oleg Grygorov, said on Telegram.

Three more people were wounded in the attack.

One person was killed and five wounded in the central eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, regional military administration head Oleksandr Ganzha said on Telegram.

Kyiv’s air force said on Friday that Russia launched two missiles and 105 drones at Ukraine overnight.

Russia meanwhile shot down 155 Ukrainian drones overnight from Thursday (July 2, 2026) to Friday (Juy 3, 2026) over its regions and annexed Crimea, according to the Russian Defence Ministry.

On Thursday (July 2, 2026), Russia unleashed one of the most intense drone and missile attacks to hit the Ukrainian capital since the start of its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

At least 30 people were killed in Kyiv, according to a toll provided Friday (July 3, 2026) by rescue services.

Two people were killed, and several were wounded as a result of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian border regions, local authorities said Wednesday (January 14, 2026).

In the city of Rostov-on-Don, a drone attack sparked a fire in a residential building, and the body of a man was found in the charred remains of one of the apartments, the local governor, Yuri Sliussar, wrote on Telegram.

Four other people, including a four-year-old, were wounded in strikes elsewhere in the Rostov region, which sparked fires in several industrial areas.

In the border region of Belgorod, a woman was killed and a man wounded when a Ukrainian drone struck a vehicle, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and in recent months has been pummelling the country nightly with hundreds of drones and missiles.

Ukraine launches dozens of drones at Russia every night in retaliation, saying it aims to target the energy industry, which is helping the Kremlin finance its invasion.