Two elderly people were killed in a Russian drone attack on the village of Korotych in Kharkiv district overnight into Wednesday. According to the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, they were an 81-year-old woman and an 83-year-old man, as reported by the Kyiv Post and the Kyiv Independent on 21 October.
According to Syniehubov, eleven other residents suffered acute stress reactions, including a two-month-old boy and an eight-year-old girl. All had received medical assistance. According to the governor, the drones damaged 13 private houses, a vehicle and an outbuilding that was destroyed by fire. Emergency services extinguished the fires and assessed the damage.
Attacks on university, capital and port region
In the central Ukrainian region of Poltava, according to governor Vitalii Diakivnych, a Russian drone hit an educational building in Kremenchuk overnight. “A hit by an enemy UAV on a building of an educational institution was recorded in Kremenchuk. A fire broke out. All services are working on site,” the Kyiv Post quotes the governor. According to Diakivnych, two people were injured, including a 16-year-old child who was hospitalised with a concussion, the Kyiv Independent reports. According to the Kyiv Independent, local media identified the building as the fifth teaching building of Kremenchuk National University “Mykhailo Ostrohradskyi”. Mayor Vitalii Maletskyi said students had still had classes there the day before.
In Kyiv, according to mayor Vitali Klitschko, Russian drones struck residential areas and infrastructure throughout Tuesday, 20 October. One person was killed, 21 others were injured, twelve of them were taken to hospital, three in serious condition. The Sviatoshynskyi, Desnianskyi and Solomianskyi districts were among those affected. Shortly after midnight, Klitschko reported another drone hit on a transport facility in the Solomianskyi district, where a fire broke out. Debris from intercepted drones also fell on open ground in Sviatoshynskyi and in a non-residential area in Solomianskyi.
In the southern region of Mykolaiv, a drone hit a shopping centre of the Epicentr DIY chain in Pervomaisk on Tuesday evening. According to acting governor Heorhii Reshetilov, eight people were injured: five women aged 28 to 56 and three men aged 23 to 43. Two women were taken to hospital in moderate condition, the other six were treated as outpatients. According to the regional administration, the number of injured rose from initially two to eight.
Transport infrastructure was also attacked in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv on Tuesday evening. The head of the military city administration, Dmytro Bryzhynskyi, reported a drone hit that sparked a fire. According to the authorities, there were no casualties. Already on 18 October, a Russian attack on a school in Chernihiv had damaged classrooms, windows and the facade and injured two civilians.
58 drones shot down or suppressed
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia deployed two Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles, four S-300 missiles and 98 drones overnight, including around 70 Shahed combat drones. By 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday, air defence forces had shot down or electronically suppressed 58 drones, the Kyiv Post reports. Missiles and 37 attack drones had hit ten locations, and debris from intercepted drones came down at two other sites. The Air Force warned that the attack was ongoing and that several Russian drones were still in Ukrainian airspace.
Kremenchuk has repeatedly been the target of Russian attacks in recent weeks. According to the Kyiv Independent, a missile attack on 7 October killed two people and injured dozens, and residential buildings were damaged.
Editor’s note: The information on casualties and damage comes from Ukrainian authorities and the Ukrainian Air Force. The situation in the affected areas may still change as rescue and clean-up operations continue.
