Russia fired hundreds of drones at Ukraine between late Thursday (June 4, 2026) and early Friday (June 5), killing seven people and destroying a factory that produces milk products for children, authorities said.

Images published by Ukraine’s state emergency service showed the ruins of a building bearing the logo of Ukrainian dairy producer “Yagotynske for Kids”, its facade partly destroyed and flames visible on one floor.

“The enemy attacked a peaceful civilian food industry enterprise,” Kyiv region governor Mykola Kalashnyk said in a post on Telegram. “Unfortunately, the number of people killed as a result of the hostile attack has increased to four people,” he said in a later post.

Separate strikes on Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region killed two people, regional governor Oleksandr Ganzha said, while a drone strike in the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed one woman, according to the Ukrainian state emergency service.

Russia fired at least 216 drones at Ukraine between late Thursday (June 4) and early Friday (June 5), as well as two missiles, according to the Ukrainian air force.

Moscow and Kyiv have intensified drone strikes on each other in recent months as U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to end the war, now in its fifth year, remain stalled over the conflict in the West Asia.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a meeting with Vladimir Putin in an open letter to the Russian leader late Thursday (June 4), saying it was only the leaders who could resolve “key issues”.

The Kremlin said it was aware of the letter but that Mr. Putin had yet to review it. The Russian leader has previously ruled out meeting Zelensky before a final deal is agreed and has questioned his legitimacy.

Russia is demanding Ukraine fully withdraw from the eastern Donbas region as a precondition of any deal. Ukraine wants a full ceasefire along the current front lines, pending negotiations on a territorial settlement.

Five Azerbaijanis were killed and three wounded in a drone attack on two foreign cargo ships in the Sea of Azov, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said on Friday (June 5, 2026).

Russia said Ukraine carried out the attack. The head of Ukraine’s drone forces said Kyiv had struck vessels transporting illegal cargo in the area, without commenting on the statements by Baku and Moscow or the reports of crew killed.

Citing an official Russian communication to Baku, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said 25 of its citizens were among the crews of the two vessels, which it said were not owned by Azerbaijan.

“The Russian side provided relevant information that, as a result of the attack, a total of 5 of our citizens were killed and three were wounded,” it said.

It said the wounded had been taken to hospital in the Russian city of Yeysk on the Azov Sea, and that embassy staff had travelled to the scene.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin blamed Ukraine for the attack, in comments quoted by Russian state media.

“We know very well who is using drones, both aerial and naval, to attack peaceful civilian vessels in the waters of the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea,” he told journalists in Saint Petersburg.

Answering a follow-up question, he confirmed that he was referring to Ukraine.

The commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces (USF), Robert Brovdi, said Ukrainian drones had “struck five illegally loitering vessels during the night of June 5 in the ports of Mariupol and Berdiansk, and in the coastal waters of the temporarily occupied territories”.

He said they were being used to ship grain from occupied Ukraine and did not refer specifically to Baku’s statement that five Azerbaijani citizens were killed.

When ‌a large explosion shook Olha Mudra’s apartment block in Kyiv in ​the early hours of Tuesday (June 1, 2026) it felt like the end of ⁠the world. Ms. Mudra, her hair covered in dust and face smeared with soot, recalled the moment when the blast occurred, in the third mass attack on the Ukrainian capital in as many ‌weeks.

“There was smoke everywhere, you couldn’t see anything,” Ms. Mudra told Reuters, standing with her six-year-old daughter Natalia. “We couldn’t understand what was happening — some kind of ‌apocalypse?”

Behind her, emergency workers and fellow residents surveyed damaged buildings, twisted debris and ‌burned-out ⁠vehicles that have become a familiar sight in an aerial war ⁠with Russia that appears to be intensifying.

Both sides say they only attack military targets. But civilians are also caught up in the horror, with at least 18 people killed and more than 100 wounded in ​the latest Russian strikes. At least 12 ‌of the deaths came in the southeastern city of Dnipro.

Outside a ruined apartment building there, a small group of family and friends looked on in shock as rescue workers removed at least three bodies from the rubble. One man among ‌them burst into tears.

In Kyiv, it was not clear if Ms. Mudra’s home ​was hit by a drone or a missile, or by debris from a projectile downed by Ukrainian air defences. Whatever the cause, confusion ⁠followed. “We were calling other people, as we couldn’t see anything,” she said. “People were using flashlights, as it was dark. We couldn’t understand where we were.”

Kyiv ‌and other Ukrainian cities awoke on Tuesday (June 1, 2026) to the wail of air raid alerts and boom of air defences and incoming drones and missiles that lit up the night sky on impact.

Thousands of residents of the capital hurried to metro stations where they lay out mattresses and set up tents along packed platforms to shelter from the danger deep underground. Anna Krzhypenska, a 21-year-old student, summed up the sense of ‌exhaustion from a conflict well into its fifth year.

“It’s difficult, both mentally and physically, because ​you would like to wake up peacefully in the morning, have a cup of coffee, but instead you have to go downstairs (to the metro).” In ⁠the hours after the attack, fire fighters battled blazes at several locations.

The bombardment comes ⁠amid an escalation in rhetoric between Russia and Ukraine that leaves little hope of a swift end to Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.

Russia ‌launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, hoping to topple the pro-Western government in Kyiv. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands of civilians have been killed ​since, although the front lines are barely budging.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Chief Mark Rutte pledged the alliance’s “absolute solidarity” in a call with Romania’s president Friday (May 29, 2026), slamming Russia for a drone crash that injured two people in the country bordering Ukraine.

“I affirmed that NATO stands ready to defend every inch of Allied territory,” Mr. Rutte said.

“We will continue to enhance our readiness to deter and defend against any threat, including from drones.”

Mr. Rutte said “Russia’s reckless behaviour is a danger to us all.”

“They continue to target civilians and civilian infrastructure across Ukraine, and last night showed yet again that the implications of their illegal war of aggression don’t stop at the border.”

‘Reckless incursion’

The U.S. ambassador to NATO denounced a “reckless incursion” into Romanian territory though he did not explicitly call out Russia over the incident.

“We stand with our NATO Ally Romania and condemn this reckless incursion on its territory,” Ambassador Matthew Whitaker wrote on X, vowing: “We will defend every inch of NATO territory.”

NATO’s top commander, U.S. General Alexus Grynkewich, spoke to Romania’s military Chief about the incident, the alliance said.

“They also agreed to stay in particularly close contact with one another as an investigation of the incident continues, and potential additional defensive measures are considered,” NATO’s supreme headquarters said.

Multiple sources at NATO said there was no indication whether Bucharest would call for emergency consultations under the alliance’s Article Four.

That move would still be well short of NATO’s Article Five mutual defence clause being triggered, which has happened only once in the alliance’s 77-year history after the September 11 attacks in the United States (U.S.).

Article Four consultations have been called three times during Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine.

The first time just after the invasion in 2022, once by Poland after incursions by Russian drones, and once by Estonia after Russian fighter jets violated its airspace.

Pope ​Leo on Wednesday (May 27, 2026) decried ‌what he called ​a “sharp ⁠intensification” of the war in Ukraine, telling ‌pilgrims at his weekly ‌audience at ‌the ⁠Vatican that he wanted ⁠to express closeness to civilians killed ​in recent ‌attacks.

Pope calls idea of ‘just war’ put forward by U.S. ‘outdated’ in first manifesto

“I am following with concern the war in ‌Ukraine,” Leo, the first ​U.S. Pope, said. “War does ⁠not solve problems, but aggravates them. ‌It does not build security, but multiplies suffering and hatred”. “Where missiles and ‌drones fall, hopes ​also fall, homes and places of ⁠worship are destroyed, ⁠and innocent lives are shattered,” ‌he said.

Ukraine’s military and regional officials on Monday (May 11, 2026) reported Russian drone strikes and battlefield clashes over ​the past 24 hours, despite a U.S.-brokered ceasefire.

Ukraine and ‌Russia agreed on Friday (May 8) to a ​ceasefire from May 9 to May 11 ⁠as part of a U.S.-led push for peace under President Donald Trump to end more than four years ‌of war since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

The ceasefire, which Mr. Trump said on ‌Friday (May 8) he hoped would be extended, was ‌already ⁠showing signs of strain on Sunday (May 11), ⁠when each side accused the other of violating it.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday (May 11) Moscow had refrained from large-scale ​aerial and missile ‌attacks but that it had continued assaults along parts of the long front where Russian forces are advancing.

Russia’s Defence Ministry accused Ukraine on Sunday ‌(May 11) of flouting the ceasefire, saying it had ​downed 57 Ukrainian drones over the past day and “responded in kind” on the ⁠battlefield. It did not immediately report on the battlefield situation on Monday (May 11).

In Ukraine, one person was killed ‌, and two people were wounded in the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, the regional governor said. Two were killed, and two were wounded in the southern region of Kherson, the Kherson region’s Governor said.

Three people were wounded in the neighbouring ‌Mykolaiv region, five were hurt in the northern region of ​Kharkiv, and four were wounded in the eastern region of Donetsk, according to reports ⁠by the regions’ Governors.

The General Staff of Ukraine’s ⁠military said 180 battlefield clashes had been recorded along the front line over the ‌past 24 hours and that Russian forces had on Sunday (May 11) deployed 8,037 “kamikaze” drones in attacks ​on settlements and military positions.

Ukraine used interceptor systems to shoot down more than 33,000 Russian drones of various types in March, a record monthly figure since Moscow launched its all-out invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine’s defence minister claimed.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s domestically developed long-range attack drones struck a Russian oil refinery and terminal on the Black Sea for the third time in less than two weeks, prompting the evacuation of local people as a precautionary measure.

Ukraine has asked Turkiye to host a ​meeting between President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and ‌Russian President Vladimir Putin, its top ​diplomat said, as Kyiv ⁠seeks to reinvigorate stalling peace talks.

“We asked the Turks about it, we asked some ‌other capitals,” Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in comments to reporters ‌on Tuesday (April 21, 2026) that were cleared for ‌release ⁠on Wednesday (April 22, 2026).

A woman died ‍and three other people were injured ​in an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on ‌the southern Russian city ​of Voronezh, the region’s Governor Alexander Gusev said on Sunday (January 11, 2026).

More than 10 apartment buildings, about 10 private houses, a secondary school and several administrative buildings were damaged in the ​attack on the city, Mr. Gusev said ⁠on the Telegram messaging app.

“Our city was subjected to one of the heaviest drone attacks ​since the start ⁠of the special military operation,” Mr. Gusev said, using Moscow’s term for its war in Ukraine.

The full-scale of the attack ‌on Voronezh, which lies 470 km (292 ‌miles) from Moscow and roughly 250 km (155 miles) from the ‍border with Ukraine, was not immediately clear. Reuters could not independently verify ‍the reports.

Ukraine says it strikes targets inside Russia in the war that Moscow launched nearly four years ago to disrupt the Kremlin’s war effort and in response to repeated missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian ⁠cities and infrastructure, including energy facilities.

Russia launched a hypersonic missile on ​Friday (January 9, 2026) at a site in Ukraine near ⁠NATO-member Poland, a strike Kyiv’s European allies portrayed as an effort to deter them from continuing support for Ukraine. 

“A Ukrainian drone attack damaged the Sterlitamak petrochemical plant deep inside Russia, causing a partial collapse of a water-treatment facility but no injuries,” regional authorities said on Tuesday (November 4, 2025).

“The plant in the Bashkortostan region, some 1,500 km from the Ukrainian border in the Urals Mountains, was operating without interruption,” the head of the Bashkortostan region, Radiy Khabirov, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Mr. Khabirov added that both of the drones involved in the overnight strike were destroyed. The Russian Defence Ministry said in its daily report that in addition to the two drones downed over the Bashkortostan region, its defence systems destroyed 83 drones over seven other Russian regions.

The administration of the city of Sterlitamak, where the plant is located, said that all five workers inside were not injured.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Kyiv has stepped up long-range drone and missile strikes inside Russia, hitting oil refineries, depots, and logistics hubs, which it says feed the Kremlin’s war machine.

Moscow calls the attacks terrorism, but Ukraine says they are legitimate self-defence in the war that Russia launched in February 2022.