Russian drones slammed into a busy shopping centre in eastern Ukraine on Friday (August 22, 2026), killing 16 people in an attack condemned as “cynical and despicable” by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The attack on Kryvyi Rig, Mr. Zelenskyy’s hometown, comes as Russia has intensified its bombardments of Ukrainian cities in recent months.

Four more people, including three minors, were killed in another strike in the southern Mykolaiv region, Interior Minister Ivan Vygivsky said on Telegram.

Videos on social media of the Kryvyi Rig incident showed rescuers rushing to help the wounded on the street outside, as smoke poured out of the building.

A second drone smashed into the roof of the building around half an hour after the first — a repeat strike that Mr. Zelenskyy said in a post on X was “targeting the emergency responders”.

Ukrainian emergency services initially said the attack had killed 15 people, wounding 130 others, 23 of them children.

Oleksandr Ganzha, the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, later posted on Telegram that “the death toll from the enemy attack has risen to 16”.

In his X post, Mr. Zelenskyy condemned “an absolutely cynical and despicable strike…carried out by the Russians against an ordinary shopping centre”.

Kryvyi Rig, an industrial city roughly 60 kilometres (37 miles) from the front line, has come under repeated Russian attacks throughout the war.

Allies to meet

The United Nations reported that the civilian death toll in 2026 had risen to its highest level since the first months of the war.

Ukraine’s allies are to meet on Monday to reaffirm their support for Kyiv in talks held on the country’s independence day.

The meeting of the so-called Coalition of the Willing will be co-chaired by French President Emmanuel Macron – joining via video link – German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and the new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham.

Around 10 leaders including European Council chief Antonio Costa will be in Kyiv for the coalition meeting, according to an EU official.

Mr. Zelenskyy urged a strong response from Ukraine’s allies.

“The world must respond to them accordingly — with real pressure on the aggressor. For peace to be possible, Russia must face real accountability,” he said.

Mr. Zelenskyy held a call with UN chief Antonio Guterres on Friday (August 21, 2026), updating him on Russian strikes and the civilian casualties they have caused, the Ukrainian leader said on X.

The European Union’s top diplomat condemned the strike “as terror by design” and threatened “the most far-reaching Russia sanctions listings since the start of the war”.

“Russia’s attack against a shopping centre in (Kryvyi Rig) shows the absolute and utter depravity of Moscow’s war,” Kaja Kallas wrote on X, claiming that Moscow “wants to make Ukrainian cities unliveable”.

Kyiv has repeatedly appealed to its allies for additional support as Russia steps up its strikes, with Ukrainian forces struggling in particular to intercept salvos of ballistic missiles.

Ukraine has also escalated retaliatory strikes on Russia in recent months, in part to try to pressure Moscow into coming to the negotiating table to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

Diplomatic efforts have failed to move the two sides towards a deal, with Russia demanding sweeping territorial and political concessions from Kyiv.

Mr. Zelenskyy has ruled out agreeing to those terms, arguing it would amount to an effective capitulation that would leave his country dangerously exposed to another Russian attack.

Ukrainian air defences intercepted five ballistic missiles launched by Russia in a raft of overnight attacks, Ukraine’s air force said Tuesday, though other missiles and drones got through and hit the capital Kyiv.

It was the first time in almost two weeks that Ukraine claimed to have downed Russian ballistic missiles, which are harder to stop than drones or cruise missiles.

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Ukrainian air defences likely used the U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air guided missile system, which is the most effective way of countering ballistic missiles, but ammunition for it has been in short supply amid the Iran war.

In Kyiv, the attack caused fires at two warehouses, while a school was also damaged, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement that the attack targeted military manufacturing facilities in the Ukrainian capital that produce long-range missiles and drones.

Moscow wants to choke off Ukrainian strikes on oil facilities deep inside Russia that have caused critical fuel shortages, frustrating the public and, Western analysts say, hindering the Russian army’s advance on the front line inside Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force said one ballistic missile and 25 drones struck 17 locations, while falling debris was reported in 10 locations.

Ukraine seeks to bolster air defences ahead of winter

Ukraine urgently needs to improve its air defence shield as another winter looms. Much of the country is at the mercy of Russian missiles that, since Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of its neighbour, have hammered the power grid.

In an important step forward for Kyiv’s air defence effort, nine other countries joined Ukraine in a coalition announced Monday to build a shared ballistic missile shield for Europe.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine and its partners could, within the next 12 months, jointly develop a mass-produced, low-cost system.

Mr. Zelenskyy was still in Paris on Tuesday, where he attended France’s annual Bastille Day celebrations.

President Donald Trump said at the NATO summit last week that the U.S. will give Ukraine a license to make Patriot systems itself. However, Patriots are expensive, in high demand and take a long time to produce, so it will be at least a few years before any Ukrainian-made systems are ready to deploy.

Ukraine keeps its sights on Russian oil production

Ukraine, meanwhile, kept up its long-range onslaught on Russian targets, especially oil facilities.

In the Krasnodar region in southern Russia, the attack caused a fire at the Afipsky Oil Refinery that was later put out, local authorities said.

Unconfirmed media reports said an oil refinery in the city of Salavat in the Bashkortostan region, some 1,400 kilometres (900 miles) from the Ukrainian border, was also hit by the attack. Bashkortostan head Radiy Khabirov confirmed an attack on an industrial area in Salavat, but didn’t specify what was hit.

The Russian Defence Ministry said its air defences overnight intercepted 288 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions, as well as the illegally annexed Crimea peninsula and the Azov and Black seas.

Russian troops are inching towards the city of Kostiantynivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, trying ​to establish a foothold close to a heavily defended area, ‌Ukraine’s top army official said on Saturday (May 2, 2026).

Kostiantynivka, ​along with other cities, forms a so-called fortress ⁠belt in the country’s east – an area well fortified by the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine’s military ​said on Tuesday ‌(January 13, 2025) it ​had struck a drone manufacturing plant in the ​Rostov region of ⁠Russia.

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“The destruction of ​this facility ⁠will reduce the enemy’s capacity to ‌produce ‌drones and weaken ‍the Russian aggressor’s ability ‍to strike civilian targets on Ukrainian territory,” the military ⁠said on Telegram ​messenger.

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