Russian drone strikes kill civilians in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk and Sumy regions

Russian drone strikes killed two passengers aboard a minibus in Nikopol and a man in Sumy region, adding to a day of attacks that reached deep into Ukraine’s civilian areas far from the main front line. In Nikopol, in southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha said 12 people were injured, including two children, after the strike on June 26.

Later accounts said the minibus was hit by an FPV drone and that two 12-year-old girls were among the wounded, with the injury count rising to 13. Nikopol sits on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River from the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, a location that has made the town one of the most exposed in southern Ukraine. The strike on a civilian minibus underscored how transport routes remain vulnerable as ordinary travel becomes a target.

In Sumy region, governor Oleh Hryhorov said a Russian attack drone struck a village outside the regional capital and killed a man. Follow-up reporting identified the area as Verkhnia Syrovatka hromada and the victim as a 66-year-old man killed when a drone hit an outbuilding or house. The attack pushed the civilian death toll beyond the battlefield and into border communities where residents have faced repeated drone threats.

Zaporizhzhia region also came under sustained fire. Governor Mikhail Fedorov said two people were injured in day-long Russian strikes that damaged the facades of apartment buildings, another sign that residential neighborhoods remain in the crosshairs. Across Ukraine over the same 24-hour period, Russian attacks killed at least seven people and injured at least 89, a toll that shows how the war’s violence continues to spread through transport corridors, homes and border districts as emergency services absorb one attack after another.