Russian drone and artillery attack claims 6 lives in Ukraine

Russia fired almost 50 Shahed drones at targets in Ukraine and shelled a train station where more than 100 civilians were gathered to catch a train to Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.

The barrages killed at least five people and knocked out power in most of the southern city of Kherson.

The aerial barrage came a day after Ukrainian warplanes damaged a Russian ship moored in the Black Sea off Crimea as both sides’ soldiers struggle to make much progress along the front line of the 22-month war.

Overnight, the Kremlin’s forces launched an artillery and drone bombardment of the Kherson region just as some 140 civilians

were waiting for a train at the region’s capital city of the same name, according to Ukrainian Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko.

The shelling killed one policeman and injured two other police officers, as well as two civilians. More than 100 people who were waiting for the train at the time of the attack arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday morning, national rail operator Ukrzaliznytsia said. The attack on the Kherson region and its capital hit residential areas and a mall as well as

striking the power grid, leaving around 70 per cent of households in Kherson city without electricity during the winter cold, regional Gov. Oleksandr Prokudin said.

It was not immediately possible to estimate when power might be restored, he said.

Targeting energy infrastructure was also a Russian tactic last winter, when it tried to break Ukrainians’ spirit by denying them heating and running water.

In Odesa, another major city in southern Ukraine, the drone assault killed two people and wounded three, including a 17-year-old man, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said.