Inmates, pregnant woman among 27 killed in Russia’s attacks on Ukraine

At least 27 people, including 16 inmates and a pregnant woman, have been killed in Russian air attacks on mostly southeastern Ukraine, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and regional officials.

The attacks came overnight on Tuesday, a day after United States President Donald Trump set Russia a new deadline of “10 or 12 days” to reach a peace deal in its war on Ukraine or face tough new sanctions, shortening a 50-day deadline he had set earlier this month.

Ivan Fedorov, head of the military administration in Zaporizhia, on Tuesday said Russia carried out eight overnight air attacks on his region alone, hitting a prison near the city of Zaporizhzhia.

“Russia bombed a penal colony near Zaporizhzhia overnight – 16 killed, 35 injured. Civilians continue to suffer. Another blatant war crime,” Fedorov said in English on X.

Zelenskyy said a pregnant woman was among three people killed in a Russian missile attack on the city of Kamianske in the central region of Dnipropetrovsk, targeting a hospital.

Also in Dnipropetrovsk, a person was killed and several were wounded in the Synelnykove district, according to Serhiy Lysak, head of the Dnipropetrovsk military administration.

In a separate attack on the village of Velyka Mykhailivka in the Odesa region on Monday night, a “75-year-old woman was killed. A 68-year-old man was wounded. A private house was damaged,” Lysak said on Telegram.

Russian forces also struck a grocery store in a village in the northeastern Kharkiv region, killing five and wounding three civilians, police were cited as saying by the AP news agency.

Authorities in the southern Kherson region reported one civilian killed and three wounded over the past 24 hours, the AP report said.

Reacting to the developments, Andriy Yermak, a senior aide to President Zelenskyy, wrote on social media: “Russian President [Vladimir] Putin’s regime, which also issues threats against the United States through some of its mouthpieces, must face economic and military blows that strip it of the capacity to wage war.”

Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia had launched 37 drones and two missiles overnight, adding that its air defence systems had downed 32 of the drones.

Russia says 74 drones downed in overnight attacks

In Russia’s southern Rostov region, multiple Ukrainian drone attacks killed one person, according to Russian authorities.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence, which reports only how many drones were destroyed, not how many Ukraine launched, said its defence units downed a total of 74 drones overnight, including 22 over the Rostov region.

“A car was damaged on Ostrovsky Street. Unfortunately, the driver who was in it died,” Yury Slyusar, acting governor of the Rostov region, said in a post on Telegram.

He said the attack had targeted several places, including Salsk, Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, Volgodonsk, Bokovsky, Tarasovsky and Slyusar.

Drone debris also fell on Salsk train station, damaging a freight train and passenger train, with passengers being evacuated, Slyusar added.

Power was disrupted at the station, forcing the suspension of train traffic, Russian Railways said on Telegram. No casualties were reported.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine, which has often said its attacks inside Russia are in response to Moscow’s relentless strikes on Ukraine.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy signed a law allowing Ukrainian people over age 60 to join the armed forces, which are struggling to find recruits as the Russian invasion drags through its fourth year.

The law will allow them to sign a one-year contract for non-combat roles if they pass medical tests, according to an explanatory note on the parliament’s website.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks, but thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict, the majority of them Ukrainian.

Kyiv has been trying to repel Russia’s summer offensive, which has made new advances into areas on the eastern front line largely spared since the start of the 2022 offensive.

Over the weekend, the Russian army said its forces had captured the settlement of Maliivka in Dnipropetrovsk, weeks after it seized the first village in the region – claims Kyiv has contested.