KYIV, Ukraine — A Russian drone crashed into an apartment building in eastern Ukraine early Saturday while many were sleeping, killing three people and injuring 12 others, Ukrainian authorities said.
The attack in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth-largest city, was part of a major Russian missile and drone barrage across the country that targeted energy infrastructure. It also killed an energy company worker in the northern city of Kharkiv, a local official said.
A fire broke out in a nine-story building in Dnieper and several apartments were destroyed, emergency services said. Rescuers found the bodies of three people, among the injured were two children.
Russia fired a total of 458 drones and 45 missiles, including 32 ballistic missiles. Ukrainian forces shot down and destroyed 406 drones and nine missiles, the air force said, adding that 25 sites were hit.
Authorities shut off power in several regions due to the attacks, Ukrainian Energy Minister Svitlana Grynchuk said in a Facebook post.
In eastern Ukraine, the battle for the strategic city of Pokrovsk has reached a pivotal stage, with both Kiev and Moscow vying to convince US President Donald Trump that they can prevail on the battlefield.
Meanwhile, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday that work had begun on the orders of President Vladimir Putin to prepare plans for a possible Russian nuclear test, according to the state news agency Tass.
Putin’s order on Wednesday followed statements by Trump that suggested Washington would restart its own nuclear tests for the first time in three decades.
Russia attacks Ukraine almost daily with drone and missile attacks, killing and injuring civilians. The Kremlin says its only goals are tied to Kiev’s war effort. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday that overnight strikes had hit military and energy sites supplying Ukrainian forces.
Moscow and Kiev have been exchanging near-daily counterattacks on energy targets as US diplomatic efforts to end the nearly four-year war have had no effect on the battlefield.
Ukraine’s long-range drone attacks on Russian refineries are aimed at depriving Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to wage war. Russia wants to cripple Ukraine’s power grid and deny civilians access to heat, light and running water in what Kyiv officials say is an attempt to “weaponize winter.”
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said in an X post that the strikes damaged “several large power facilities” around Kharkiv and Kyiv, as well as in the central Poltava region.
Thermal power plants operated by Ukraine’s state energy company Centrenergo have been shut down again by overnight strikes, the company said in a statement on Saturday. Three Centrenerga plants in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Donetsk region were damaged by Russian attacks last year and subsequently restored.
Meanwhile, Russian forces repelled a “massive” overnight strike on energy facilities in the southern Volgograd region, Governor Andrey Bocharov said on Saturday, two days after Ukraine said it had struck a key oil refinery there with long-range drones. Bocharov added that the strike knocked out power in parts of the northwest of the region, but there were no casualties. Kyiv did not immediately comment.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that its forces shot down 82 Ukrainian drones overnight, including eight over the Volgograd region. Two people were injured in the neighboring Saratov region after a Ukrainian drone strike shot out windows in an apartment building, regional governor Roman Busarin said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi vowed on Friday to “find a way to ensure that there is no Russian oil in Europe” after weeks of prolonged strikes on Russian energy infrastructure, which Ukraine says are both funding and directly fueling the Kremlin’s war.
Zelenskyy spoke to reporters shortly after Hungary secured a one-year exemption from recent US sanctions targeting major Russian oil producers.
“We won’t allow it. We won’t let the Russians sell oil there. It’s a matter of time,” he told a news conference after a meeting with senior Ukrainian military leaders, without elaborating on how Kiev might seek to stem the flow of oil.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a Trump ally who has long urged the European Union to repair ties with Moscow, says landlocked Hungary has no viable alternatives to Russian oil and that replacing those supplies would trigger an economic collapse. Critics dispute this claim.
The Trump administration last month unveiled sanctions against Russia’s main state oil firms Rosneft and Lukoil, a move that could expose their foreign buyers — including those in Central Europe, India and China — to secondary sanctions.
While most of the 27 EU member states have sharply reduced or stopped imports of Russian fossil fuels following Moscow’s large-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Hungary and Slovakia have maintained their pipeline supplies. Hungary has even increased the share of Russian oil in its energy mix.
The city of Pokrovsk lies along the eastern front line, part of what is known as Donetsk’s “belt of fortresses,” a line of heavily fortified cities that are crucial to Ukraine’s defense of the region. According to analysts, it could also be a key point in influencing Washington’s position and influencing the course of peace negotiations.
Russian troops advanced near Pokrovskoe and the nearby town of Myrnohrady, according to the Russian Defense Ministry on Saturday, saying both were encircled. It also said Russian forces had surrounded Ukrainian defenders in Kupiansk, a key railway junction in the northeastern region of Kharkiv. Kyiv did not immediately respond to Moscow’s statement, which could not be independently verified.
Joanna Kozlowska reported from London.
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