Russia and Ukraine traded strikes overnight into Sunday, killing at least eight people in Ukraine and one in Russia, officials said, just hours after Moscow brushed aside German calls to scale back its escalation toward NATO.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Saturday dismissed what is believed to be the first face to face meeting with his German counterpart since Moscow’s full scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The talks took place at the United Nations General Assembly’s annual gathering of world leaders, at German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul’s request. Lavrov said Wadephul simply reiterated an official position condemning Russia. “You can judge for yourself whether that counts as dialogue or not,” Lavrov said.
A German delegation official said Wadephul expressed openness to improved relations but stressed that any such shift would require a genuine willingness from Russia’s leadership to end the war. Ties between Moscow and Berlin have deteriorated in recent weeks following an attempted drone attack last month at Leipzig airport that Germany blamed on the Kremlin.
What We Know So Far
Casualty figures varied by city and by outlet as the day’s strikes unfolded. In Kyiv, a man was found dead after a Russian drone struck a non-residential building overnight, according to Ukraine’s emergency service. Later Sunday, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional administration, said Russian drones killed one person and wounded at least five on the capital’s outskirts. Ukrainian prosecutors separately said a drone attack on a market in Sofiiska Borshchahivka, on the western outskirts of Kyiv, killed two people and injured about 10, a higher casualty count than Tkachenko’s figures for the outskirts, a discrepancy that had not been resolved as of the latest reporting. Photos posted online showed vehicles and installations burning at the market site.
Within Kyiv itself, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a drone struck a high rise apartment building in an eastern suburb, sparking a fire and wounding at least one woman, while a second drone hit another high rise in a central district. Drones also struck areas near a kindergarten and a playground in two different districts, Klitschko said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia struck a data center in Kyiv twice Sunday morning, wounding two children and an adult, and said the day’s targets included a building used as the residence of Saudi Arabia’s ambassador.
In the northern city of Sumy, Russian guided bombs killed two people, identified by regional administration head Oleh Hryhorov as a woman and a 16 year old girl, and wounded five others. Reuters reported the bombs struck near a family support center. In Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the regional prosecutor’s office said two people died and two others were injured after Russian drones struck passenger cars, while Reuters reported prosecutors described a drone striking a car in the city of Kharkiv and killing the driver, a difference in death toll that had not been reconciled. In the southern Odesa region, one person was killed and two wounded in multiple overnight Russian attacks, said regional military administration head Oleh Kiper.
On the Russian side, a Ukrainian strike killed a woman in Enerhodar, the Russian occupied Ukrainian town that hosts Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, and wounded two others, according to the town’s Kremlin installed mayor, Maxim Pukhov. In Russia’s Belgorod border region, a woman died in a hospital Sunday after being wounded in a Ukrainian strike, regional authorities said. Russia and Ukraine have repeatedly blamed each other for damaging power lines that supply the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which Moscow captured early in the war; the plant is not currently generating power but requires an external supply to keep its cooling systems running safely.
Strikes Target Data Centers and Telecom Infrastructure
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces struck multiple data centers in Kyiv on Sunday, claiming they were providing internet service to Ukraine’s armed forces, along with a logistics hub in Odesa and two cargo vessels headed to the Odesa port. Ukraine’s largest mobile provider, Kyivstar, told the Interfax Ukraine news agency that its Kyiv headquarters was hit with no casualties, and Russia said it also struck a data center belonging to Vodafone Ukraine, the country’s second largest mobile operator, which did not respond to requests for comment.
Ukraine’s Digital Ministry said Russian strikes on data centers belonging to internet providers over the past week have caused service outages affecting about 100,000 households in Kyiv and surrounding areas. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia is deliberately targeting major data centers to disrupt the flow of information, noting that rapid alerts about incoming missile and drone threats save lives.
Zelenskyy said Russia deployed 277 attack drones of various types against Ukraine since Saturday, including 155 of the jet powered variety Moscow has increasingly relied on because they fly higher and are harder to intercept. Both sides say they do not target civilians.
Why This Matters
The exchange of strikes underscores how the war has settled into a largely aerial contest, with front line positions in Ukraine’s east and south mostly unchanged since last year. Moscow has increasingly relied on cruise and ballistic missiles, powerful glide bombs and jet powered drones, while Kyiv’s long range drones have targeted Russian oil refineries and other economic infrastructure. Russia’s growing focus on Ukraine’s telecommunications and data infrastructure adds a distinct new dimension, one aimed not only at military capability but at the civilian population’s access to early warning systems and everyday communications.
The stalled German-Russian diplomatic contact illustrates how far apart Moscow and European capitals remain even as both sides acknowledge the risks of further escalation. Lavrov’s dismissive characterization of the meeting, paired with Berlin’s insistence that any thaw requires genuine Russian movement toward ending the war, suggests little near term prospect of the kind of European diplomatic breakthrough Wadephul’s outreach was intended to test.
What Happens Next
Both countries are expected to continue exchanging long range drone and missile strikes given the sustained tempo of recent weeks and the absence of any agreed pause. Casualty figures from Sunday’s attacks in Sumy, Kharkiv and the Kyiv outskirts may shift as local authorities finalize tallies and reconcile the discrepancies between prosecutors’ and regional administrators’ reports.
Continued Russian targeting of Ukrainian data centers and communications providers is likely to remain a focus of both military reporting and diplomatic messaging from Kyiv, which has framed such strikes as an attack on civilian safety infrastructure.
Reporting drawn from the Associated Press, Reuters and The Moscow Times
