KYIV, Ukraine — Russian drones struck a shopping centre in the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine on Friday, killing 15 people and wounding scores of others, authorities said. The shopping mall strikes, plus two other separate Russian attacks in the Mykolaiv and Kharkiv regions, left a total of 21 people dead across Ukraine on Friday, authorities said. Kryvyi Rih is the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who described the attack as a double-tap strike, in which an initial wave of drones hit the area, followed by a second wave as rescue workers responded. “Attacks like these are nothing less than terrorist acts,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media. In a video address several hours later, he also said that Ukraine would respond to the shopping mall attack. Oleksandr Hanzha, who heads the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said Friday evening that the attack on the mall killed at least 15 people and injured 130, including 23 children. Kryvyi Rih has been hit multiple times during the more than 4-year-old war, with one of the deadliest occurring in April 2025, when 20 people, including nine children, were killed. Russia exploits Ukraine’s shortage of defensive systems Earlier on Friday, a Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed two women, aged 73 and 66, and wounded two others, said regional head Oleh Syniehubov. Another Russian attack on Friday evening killed four people, including three children, in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region, emergency services said. Ukraine shot down or suppressed 107 out of 135 drones launched by Russia overnight, according to a statement from Ukraine’s air force on Telegram. Friday’s attacks came just 24 hours after Russia pounded the capital of Kyiv with scores of missiles and drones in a nighttime aerial attack that killed 16 people. Large-scale Russian strikes have become a regular occurrence this summer. Just over two weeks ago, a Russian attack on Kyiv and its surrounding region killed 17 people, and nine were killed in the city two days before that. The United Nations said last week that Kyiv was one of the hardest hit cities in July, with at least 54 civilians killed and 202 injured. Moscow’s forces have recently intensified their ballistic missile attacks on Kyiv, exploiting Ukraine’s chronic shortage of U.S.-made Patriot air defence interceptors, the sole weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down the missiles. Ukrainian drones hit Russian oil refinery A Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and wounded four others when a car was struck Friday in Russia’s Belgorod region near the village of Razumnoye, local officials said, adding that two of the injured were in serious condition. Earlier, Zelenskyy said a separate Ukrainian drone attack hit an oil refinery in Perm, more than 1,600 kilometres (about 995 miles) from his country’s border. Also struck was the Marinovka military airfield in Russia’s Volgograd region, he said. The Russian online news outlet Astra reported that the Ukrainian drone had set ablaze a Lukoil-operated oil refinery in Perm. Local officials said damage was recorded at an unidentified “industrial facility.” Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defences overnight intercepted 325 Ukrainian drones over 15 Russian regions, as well as Crimea. The peninsula was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Later Friday, it said its defences shot down another 211 drones. Long-range strikes between Russia and Ukraine have escalated as troops continually fail to make significant battlefield progress, analysts say. Troop movements along the roughly 1,250-kilometre (780-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine are severely restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots that threaten infantry and vehicles. In the past year, Ukraine has devised and deployed domestically produced long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia, capturing the attention of governments and defence manufacturers around the world. Officials in Kyiv aim to make the Russian public feel the war’s consequences and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. Putin has so far shown no sign he intends to stop the invasion. The Associated Press
