At least six people have been killed and 12 others injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine, authorities said on Wednesday, as Moscow's forces continue to target civilian areas amid the ongoing war.
A Russian drone attack on a bus in the front-line city of Kherson killed at least four people and wounded four others, according to Kherson regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin. The attack occurred at approximately 8:50am local time (05:50 GMT), and all casualties were bus passengers.
In a post on Telegram, Prokudin said the wounded had been taken to hospital. He posted blurred photos of a yellow bus with bloodied steps and shattered windows, underscoring the brutality of the strike.
One person was killed and one wounded in a separate drone attack on a car in the central part of the city, Prokudin added. Russian forces regularly strike Kherson, which was under Moscow's control from March to November 2022, with drones, in what Ukraine says is the deliberate targeting of civilians.
Earlier this month, Ukraine accused Russia of chasing a man in a street market in Kherson with a remotely piloted FPV drone, calling it a 'safari' targeting civilians. The city had a population of about 280,000 before the war began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Russian forces, repelled from the city by a Ukrainian counteroffensive in late 2022, are now positioned on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River. The United Nations has reported an uptick in civilian deaths this year, with 437 civilians killed in Ukraine last month alone, the highest monthly toll since May 2022.
In a separate Russian attack, one person was killed and seven others injured in Ukraine's southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to regional Governor Ivan Fedorov. Russian drones struck the regional capital, damaging both residential and nonresidential buildings and causing a fire.
Meanwhile, Russian forces struck a cargo vessel in the Black Sea near the Ukrainian port of Odesa, Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing the Ministry of Defence. The vessel was carrying military cargo, the ministry claimed. It also said Russia's air defence brought down 453 Ukrainian drones overnight in various regions.
Russia's Defence Ministry also said its forces have captured the settlement of Vodianske in Ukraine's Donetsk region. Al Jazeera could not independently confirm the report.
At the same time, Russian authorities were rushing to put out a small fire after a drone fell in an industrial area in the city of Ufa in the Russian republic of Bashkortostan, the republic's head Radiy Khabirov said on Telegram. Khabirov added that a drone hit an apartment building and a few cars in Ufa, an oil refining hub, injuring one person.
Meanwhile, Russia's Defence Ministry announced that Russia and Ukraine have exchanged 103 prisoners of war each. The two sides have traded thousands of POWs at intervals throughout the more than four-year war.
Source: www.aljazeera.com