Russia launches overnight drone strikes on Ukraine regions

KYIV (Reuters) – Russia launched drone attacks against parts of northern, central and western Ukraine early on Saturday, damaging civilian infrastructure in at least two regions, Ukrainian authorities said.

Kyiv’s air force said the military shot down 15 of the 17 Iranian-made Shahed drones that had been launched, part of Moscow’s campaign of regular air strikes against Ukraine.

The deputy governor of the western Khmelnytskyi region said two people were wounded and dozens of buildings damaged by a blast wave.

Officials in the central Zhytomyr region were still assessing damages there after Russian forces targeted an unspecified infrastructure facility, Governor Vitaliy Bunechko reported.

There were no other immediate reports of casualties or damages.

Russia has attacked Ukrainian settlements far from the battlefield with drones and missiles as part of its full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022.

(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk in Kyiv and Lidia Kelly in Warsaw; Editing by Toby Chopra)