The aftermath of the attack on Dobropillya on 17 July 2025. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine

At least six people were killed and dozens more injured as Russia and Ukraine exchanged overnight drone strikes on Thursday, regional officials in both countries have said.

In the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, an overnight Russian drone attack caused a number of fires to break out, killing one person and injuring five more, Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhiy Lysak said on Thursday morning.

A further five people were injured in separate strikes on the nearby cities of Nikopol and Marhanets, Lysak added.

The attacks came just hours after a Russian drone strike on a shopping centre and market in the frontline city of Dobropillya in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region which killed three people and injured at least 27 more in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called an example of “horrendous, dumb Russian terror”.

“There is no military logic behind their strikes, simply an attempt to kill as many as possible” Zelensky said in his nightly address to Ukrainians on Wednesday. “Russia is all about vile strikes like this”.

According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Russia launched 64 drones at the country overnight, with the central Dnipropetrovsk region the main target. Air defences shot down 36 of the drones while a further five failed to reach their targets, the Air Force said, with a total of 23 strikes recorded at five locations.

Russia’s Defence Ministry, meanwhile, said it had intercepted 126 drones launched by Ukraine overnight over 11 regions of the country, as well as annexed Crimea.

One man was killed and six more people were injured in a Ukrainian drone strike on the western city of Belgorod near the border between the two countries, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said, with one woman killed in a later strike on the border village of Smorodino.

Alexander Gusev, governor of the western Voronezh region, said that air defences had destroyed at least five drones launched by Ukraine overnight, with four people, including three children, injured when debris fell on an apartment block in the regional capital Voronezh.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that air defences downed three drones approaching the capital overnight, with no casualties, while flights were temporarily halted at St. Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport and at Grabtsevo Airport in the city of Kaluga, southwest of Moscow.