The Russian army attacked Dnipropetrovsk Oblast more than 30 times overnight into Friday with drones and aerial bombs. As the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Hanzha, announced on Telegram on Friday morning, a 24-year-old woman was moderately injured and taken to hospital. The news agency Ukrinform reports this.
According to Hanzha, the attacks targeted, among others, the communities of Nikopol, Marhanets, Chervonohryhorivka and Pokrov in Nikopol Raion. In the community of Zelenodolsk in Kryvyi Rih Raion, a fire broke out after the attack. In Synelnykove Raion, the communities of Mykolaivka and Petropavlivka were hit, where private houses and cars were damaged. In Samarivskyi Raion, an administrative building in the community of Hubynycha was damaged. Drones and bombs also struck Pavlohrad and the community of Yurivka in Pavlohrad Raion, where fires broke out.
The attacks continue a series: already on Thursday, 8 October, according to Ukrinform, the Russian army had attacked four raions of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast more than 40 times. Two people were killed and two others injured.
A week with heavy attacks in several regions
The overnight attacks on Dnipropetrovsk are part of an intense Russian offensive against Ukraine this week. Overnight into Wednesday, 7 October, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia fired dozens of missiles and 130 drones at targets in several regions, including Kyiv, Kharkiv, Poltava and Dnipropetrovsk. According to the Berliner Zeitung, at least 21 people were killed and around 60 injured. Most of the victims were in the city of Pryluky in Chernihiv region, where a missile destroyed a five-storey residential building. By the morning of 7 October, according to local authorities, at least 15 dead had been recovered there, including four children; around 50 people were injured.
Reports on the scale of the 7 October attack differ: the Berliner Zeitung reports, citing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, around 70 missiles used, many of them ballistic. The Ukrainian Air Force stated it had intercepted five ballistic missiles, 39 cruise missiles and more than a hundred drones. The Ukrainian president called Russian ballistic missiles the greatest challenge for defence; his government is seeking interceptor missiles worldwide for US-made Patriot systems, whose stocks are scarce because of the Iran war. The Russian Ministry of Defence stated that the targets had been military-industrial facilities, including production and storage sites of the Ukrainian arms company Fire Point.
How things continue in the affected areas
For the people in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, the ongoing shelling means above all one thing: the danger is omnipresent, and the damage to residential buildings, cars and administrative buildings is increasing. Overnight into Friday, according to the information available so far, there was one injured person. The authorities continue to urge the population to seek shelters during air alarms.
The attacks of recent days have also hit energy supply. After the 7 October attack, the Ukrainian Energy Ministry announced temporary emergency shutdowns in five regions. On 8 October, there were large-scale power outages in Kyiv after a Russian attack on energy infrastructure; according to the Kyiv Independent, more than three million residents of the capital were without power. The EU Commission condemned the 7 October attack. According to Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi, Kyiv also received a new tranche of EU financial aid amounting to 1.2 billion euros on Wednesday, which is to be used for armaments spending.
A rapid easing is not in sight. The Russian army has repeatedly attacked targets far behind the front for months, and Ukraine responds with drone attacks on Russian infrastructure. For the people in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast and other affected regions, the autumn is therefore likely to remain characterised by air alarms, power outages and the fear of new attacks.
