A Ukrainian drone strike in the Russian city of Voronezh killed one person and wounded three others, local officials said Sunday, after debris from a drone fell on a house. Voronezh regional Gov. Alexander Gusev said the young woman died overnight in a hospital intensive care unit, citing damage from the attack on Saturday.
Gusev said three other people were wounded. He also said air defenses shot down 17 drones over Voronezh, and added that more than 10 apartment buildings, private houses and a high school were damaged.
The report described Voronezh as a city with just over 1 million residents, located about 250 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
Ukraine’s General Staff said Sunday that its forces hit three drilling platforms operated by Russian oil giant Lukoil in the waters of the Caspian Sea. The report said Ukraine’s long-range drone strikes on Russian energy sites aim to deprive Moscow of the oil export revenue it needs to pursue its full-scale invasion.
The Voronezh attack was reported alongside continuing damage and outages in Kyiv after Russia’s intense bombardment. The report said thousands of residents were still without power in Kyiv, following the bombardment.
DTEK said Sunday that 30,000 people in Kyiv were still without power. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Friday around half the apartment buildings—nearly 6,000—were left without heat in daytime temperatures of about minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 Fahrenheit).
The report said Russia’s barrage and the launch of the nuclear-capable Oreshnik missile followed reports of major progress in talks between Ukraine and its allies on how to defend Ukraine from further aggression if a U.S.-led peace deal is struck. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Saturday that Ukrainian negotiators “continue to communicate with the American side.”
The report said chief negotiator Rustem Umerov was in contact with U.S. partners on Saturday, according to Zelenskyy.
Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said Russia targeted Ukraine with 154 drones overnight into Sunday and that 125 were shot down. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s main intelligence directorate said Sunday that Russia this month deployed the new jet-powered “Geran-5” strike drone against Ukraine for the first time, and described it as a Russian variant of the Iranian-designed Shahed.
According to the directorate, the Geran-5 can carry a 90-kilogram (200-pound) warhead and has a range of nearly 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).