Russia and Ukraine traded drone and missile strikes on April 6, with Russian attacks killing four people in southern Ukraine while Ukrainian drones hit oil-export infrastructure in Russia, according to Ukrainian officials and statements cited by the Ukrainian president.
Ukrainian officials said a Russian drone attack struck Odesa at night, heavily damaging an apartment block. The attack killed two women and a 2-year-old child, and rescuers pulled four people from the rubble, working under floodlights, officials said.
Ukrainian officials also said 11 people were hospitalized after the Odesa strike, including a pregnant woman and two children. Zelenskyy, in a post on X, said the youngest patient was less than a year old.
The broader campaign continued beyond Odesa, with regional authorities reporting additional incidents across the south and east. In Kherson, Russian shelling killed an elderly woman and three other women, and regional officials said several injured women were treated for shrapnel wounds, concussion, blast injuries and head trauma.
In Nikopol, Ukrainian officials reported that drones and shelling injured seven people, including leaving a 62-year-old man in critical condition. Regional authorities said strikes damaged a multistory building and a pharmacy.
Ukrainian officials also said drones struck Kharkiv, injuring three people. Elsewhere, Zelenskyy said overnight barrages hit energy infrastructure across Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Dnipro regions, and that more than 300,000 households were left without electricity in northern Chernihiv after distribution facilities were damaged, according to the regional power utility.
Zelenskyy said on April 6 that the scale of the latest attacks on Ukraine was continuing to rise. He said that over the past week Russia launched more than 2,800 attack drones, nearly 1,350 powerful glide bombs and more than 40 missiles of various types.
In tandem with the pressure on Ukraine’s air defenses, Zelenskyy urged partners to coordinate more closely on intercepting drones and missiles. He said in a statement that “need to strengthen air defense together so that the interception rate of drones and missiles continues to increase,” adding that “Russia has no intention of stopping” its invasion.
Ukrainian attacks also reached Russia’s energy and logistics assets. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Ukrainian drones struck the Novorossiysk oil terminal, describing the site as one of Russia’s largest Black Sea ports, and said the attack damaged a pipeline, loading and unloading berths, and set fire to four tanks holding petroleum products.
Russian officials also said the strike damaged assets belonging to the Caspian Pipeline Consortium run by U.S. and Kazakhstani companies. Krasnodar Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said eight people, including two children, were injured in the Novorossiysk attack, which he said damaged six apartment buildings and two private houses.
Ukraine’s response has also included strikes on Russian territory beyond the Black Sea. Officials said Russian Defense Ministry air-defense forces downed 50 Ukrainian drones overnight, and Ukraine’s armed forces claimed they hit a Russian Black Sea frigate, the Admiral Makarov, and a drilling rig, according to the report. Russian officials did not immediately comment on the claim.
Earlier, Zelenskyy expressed concern that the war in the Middle East could be draining weapons stockpiles Ukraine depends on. He told The Associated Press in a weekend interview that the weapons strain could be especially severe for American-made Patriot systems used to stop missiles.