Russian and Ukrainian attacks kill 4 people a day after deadly shopping
mall drone strike by Moscow
[August 22, 2026]
By VOLODYMYR YURCHUK
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least
two people overnight in Ukraine, officials said Saturday, while a
Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Krasnodar region killed two others, a
day after a strike on a Ukrainian shopping center killed 16 people.
In the latest attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that
one person was killed and another wounded when ballistic missiles hit
railway infrastructure in the capital, Kyiv.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that its forces had hit a locomotive
depot.
Moscow’s forces have recently intensified their ballistic missile
attacks on Kyiv, exploiting Ukraine’s chronic shortage of U.S.-made
Patriot air defense interceptors, the sole weapon in its arsenal able to
shoot down the missiles.
Russian drone strikes also killed one person overnight in a village in
the Zaporizhzhia region, local officials said Saturday. Zelenskyy said
that three people were wounded in an attack on a minibus in the regional
capital, also called Zaporizhzhia.
In Russia's southern Krasnodar region, authorities said that two
children were killed and two adults were wounded in a Ukrainian drone
strike.
The latest attacks came a day after Russian drones struck a shopping
center in the city of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine on Friday.
Dnipropetrovsk regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said in the early hours of
Saturday that the death toll had risen to 16 and nine people remain
missing after the attack, which wounded another 130.
Kryvyi Rih is the hometown of 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. The Ukrainian
leader said the fire, which spread across 9,000 square meters (around
97,000 square feet), had been extinguished and rescue efforts were
underway.
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A local resident walks past destroyed vehicles and scattered debris
the day after a Russian missile and drone attack in Kyiv, Friday,
Aug. 21, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Kryvyi Rih has been hit multiple times during the 4˝-year all-out
war between Russia and Ukraine, with one of the deadliest occurring
in April 2025, when 20 people were killed, including nine children.
Large-scale Russian strikes have become a regular occurrence this
summer, with Friday’s attacks landing just 24 hours after Russia
pounded Kyiv with scores of missiles and drones in a nighttime
assault that killed 16 people.
The capital has been hit hard repeatedly in recent weeks: 17 people
were killed in a strike on Kyiv and its surrounding region just over
two weeks ago, and nine died in another attack on 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 wounded.
At the same time, Ukraine has shifted the war onto Russian soil
through long-range drone strikes on oil facilities that have caused
fuel shortages across Russia. It also has unsettled the Russian
public by striking warehouses of Wildberries, the country’s biggest
online retailer.
The Russian online news outlet Astra reported Saturday that a
Ukrainian drone set ablaze an oil refinery in the Samara region.
Local officials said that damage was recorded at an unidentified
“industrial facility” and a logistics center for Ozon, a competitor
to Wildberries.
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