Deadly strikes across several regions

Russian drone and missile attacks killed at least 27 people in Ukraine, according to officials, in a fresh wave of strikes carried out days before a two-day unilateral ceasefire announced by Moscow was due to begin. The attacks hit several regions, with the heaviest toll reported in southeastern Zaporizhzhia and in the Donetsk city of Kramatorsk.

Ukrainian authorities said glide bombs struck Zaporizhzhia on Tuesday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 20 more. Regional governor Ivan Fedorov said the bombs hit a car repair shop and nearby residential buildings, making the attack one of the city’s worst of the year. Further northeast, six people were killed and 12 wounded in Kramatorsk, one of the last major population centres still under Ukrainian control in the embattled Donetsk region.

Four more people were killed in Dnipro, widening the death toll from the day’s attacks. Separate strikes also hit state-run gas facilities in Poltava and Kharkiv regions overnight. According to Naftogaz chief executive Serhiy Koretskyi, those attacks killed three employees and two rescue workers and cut gas supplies to nearly 3,500 customers. The energy infrastructure damage adds another layer to the conflict, showing that Russian attacks continue to target not only front-line positions but also civilian and industrial systems behind the lines.

Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 11 ballistic missiles and 164 drones from Monday evening into Tuesday, and that most were intercepted or neutralised. Even so, eight missiles and 14 drones reached 14 locations. That pattern points to a familiar but still severe burden on Ukrainian air defences: large-scale launch volumes can be blunted, but not fully stopped.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the timing of the attacks after Moscow announced a ceasefire to coincide with May 8-9 commemorations in Russia. He called the strikes cynical and senseless and argued that Russia had chosen to bombard Ukraine while presenting itself as honouring wartime memory. Kyiv responded with a proposal for an open-ended ceasefire starting at midnight on Wednesday, but Moscow gave little sign of engaging with it.

The battlefield picture on the same day extended beyond Ukraine. Russian officials in Crimea and in Russia’s Chuvash Republic reported Ukrainian drone attacks that killed civilians and wounded dozens. Ukrainian forces also struck one of Russia’s major oil refineries in the Leningrad region, where local authorities said a fire was contained and no casualties were reported.

Taken together, the day’s events showed how the war remains active on multiple fronts even as ceasefire diplomacy and public messaging continue around the calendar. The human cost, however, was concentrated in Ukraine’s cities and energy network, where the strikes left a toll measured in dead, wounded and damaged infrastructure.