KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Seven people were killed when debris from a Russian drone hit an apartment block in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Saturday. A 3-month-old baby was among the dead.
A further eight people were injured, authorities said.
Odesa regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said the Shahed drone was shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, and that the falling debris hit the apartment building.
Ukraine’s Armed Forces reported that the Odesa region was attacked by eight drones, of which seven were shot down by air defenses.
Across the country, air defenses shot down 14 of 17 drones launched against Ukraine, according to the armed forces.
Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov reported Saturday morning that over 20 settlements in the eastern Ukrainian province had sustained Russian artillery and mortar attacks, while high-rise buildings in the regional capital, also called Kharkiv, were damaged by a drone attack.
He said there were no casualties, but that three people suffered an “acute stress reaction.”
In the partly occupied Kherson region, Russian artillery shelling killed a 53-year-old man on Saturday morning, the Kherson regional prosecutor’s office said.
In Russia, a drone crashed into an apartment building in St. Petersburg on Saturday morning, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.
Six people received medical help after the explosion rocked the building, the agency said, citing the press service of the city’s health care committee.
The Mash news site said that the apartment building was hit by a Ukrainian drone. The Associated Press could not verify this claim.
The site published videos appearing to show the moment the apartment building was struck, showing a strong flash of light engulfing one side of the building and fragments of debris flying into the air. Another video showed car alarms going off.
Russia’s Defense Ministry has not commented on the incident.
In Russia’s Bryansk region, bordering Ukraine, an investigative team came under attack by a Ukrainian drone, according to the Russian Investigative Committee. Two members of the team were wounded and two others suffered shock, the committee wrote on Telegram.
