A Russian strike on an industrial plant and a busy street in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro killed at least three people and injured 15 on Friday night, a regional leader said. Local officials reported burning cars, broken windows and a fire in the area. An air alert was imposed across most of Ukraine in the evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, adding that there were preliminary indications of additional strikes in the Kyiv region and the city of Kremenchuk.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense said about 70 percent of Russian strikes have targeted nonmilitary infrastructure. The Pentagon estimated that in the past two weeks, between 100 and 150 civilians have died as a result of Russian air attacks, including Thursday’s strike on Vinnytsia, which killed 23. Ukraine’s defense minister told the BBC that military casualties peaked in May, when the country was losing up to 100 soldiers a day as Russia’s advantage was at its “greatest.”
Russian forces seem to be emerging from a brief “operational pause” in fighting in the east, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The think tank said Moscow could ramp up offensives in the next 72 hours, citing recent small-scale — and mostly unsuccessful — attacks around several cities in the Donetsk region as a sign of its intent.