US-backed Ukrainian drone attacks on Russia on Thursday killed at least four people, according to local authorities, including a three-year-old boy in the Voronezh Oblast.
Voronezh Governor Alexander Gusev said 36 Ukrainian drones were shot down over the region and that the boy was killed when one crashed and caused a fire in his home.
“A UAV crash in a Voronezh suburb caused a fire in a private home, which, unfortunately, claimed the life of a three-year-old boy. His parents sustained injuries of varying severity,” Gusev wrote on Telegram. He added that other houses and apartments, a marketplace, and multiple cars were also damaged during the attack.
Another Russian was killed, and nine were injured in the Belgorod Oblast when a drone struck a vehicle, according to the region’s governor. Ukrainian drones also targeted Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, where two people were killed and four were injured by drone attacks.
Russian attacks on Ukraine also killed four civilians, according to a report from Al Jazeera. The report said a Russian attack on a food business in the Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region killed three and injured at least 10 people, and a 57-year-old man was killed in the Sumy Oblast.
The war has continued to escalate and shows no sign of slowing down despite recent renewed talks about the conflict between the US and Russia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Manila on Thursday on the sidelines of an ASEAN summit, and warned the US of continuing “unacceptable” arms sales to Ukraine.
At the recent NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and expressed support for Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks, which are supported by US intelligence. The president claimed the attacks could end the war, to which the Kremlin responded by saying they will likely prolong the conflict.
