Moscow:
Indian-origin billionaire Lakshmi Mittal’s ArcelorMittal mining and metallurgical advanced in Kryvyi Rih — Ukraine’s largest built-in metal unit — got here below a missile assault by Russia. The strike, which got here in retaliation for a Ukrainian drone barrage, killed two folks, injured 14 employees, and compelled a partial halt to manufacturing after damaging core power and blast-furnace operations.
Ukraine earlier launched tons of of drones throughout Russia, killing a minimum of six folks in one in all Kyiv’s largest aerial assaults of the struggle. Moscow’s regional governor Andrey Vorobyov described the assault as “one of the crucial huge drone assaults in latest reminiscence”. Russia’s defence ministry mentioned it had intercepted 822 drones throughout the nation in a single day.
An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a personal house within the Moscow area, Vorobyov mentioned, including that one other Ukrainian assault had sparked a blaze at a Wildberries warehouse –Russia’s largest on-line retailer and an organization managed by the nation’s richest girl, billionaire Tatyana Kim– within the city of Podolsk.
Some 600 drones have been detected headed towards the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin mentioned, with a 3rd of these destroyed over the Moscow area itself.
One other drone assault focused three cities in Russia’s southwestern Rostov area, killing 5 folks, native Governor Yury Slyusar mentioned. The assault, with greater than 150 drones, broken a number of properties and a railway station and sparked a forest fireplace.
Additionally Learn: Ukraine Strikes Russian Rocket Centre Supporting Starlink-Style Network
New Entrance in Conflict
Ukraine has stepped up its assaults on Russia this 12 months, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones concentrating on army industries and power services.
It has additionally more and more attacked logistics big Wildberries’ depots, burning billions of {dollars}’ value of merchandise. These assaults have introduced the struggle house to the Russian public almost 4 and a half years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
With preventing on the entrance at a close to standstill and talks frozen, the warring international locations have considerably stepped up long-range assaults deep behind one another’s traces, pushing the civilian deaths to their highest ranges because the struggle’s first months in 2022.
Additionally Learn: Video: Apocalyptic Blaze After Massive Drone Attack Hits Moscow Region
Russia’s Retaliation
In Ukraine, a barrage of Russian drones and missiles killed two folks at ArcelorMittal’s metal plant in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown, on Sunday.
ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s largest metal producer, confirmed that one in all its websites had been hit in a missile assault and that operations had been partially suspended.
Russian forces struck the ArcelorMittal Krivoy Rog metal plant in Ukraine’s Krivoy Rog in a single day with Iskander-M missiles, damaging key manufacturing services and halting operations. #KrivoyRog pic.twitter.com/7a6m4sTh7p
— WW3 Watchtower (@WW3Watchtower) August 16, 2026
One other strike on Kryvyi Rih on Sunday killed one individual.
Strikes additionally hit different areas, killing two folks within the southeastern Zaporizhzhia area, one within the border area of Sumy and one other in Donetsk within the east.
Russian assaults additionally sparked fires all through Kyiv, wounding six folks. A blaze took maintain at one of many metropolis’s largest guide markets, tearing via kiosks huddled near the Pochaina metro station.
In a social media submit on the in a single day raid, Zelensky mentioned that “wherever the Russians can attain with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure.”
Over the previous week, he mentioned, Ukrainian cities had been pummelled by “greater than 1,550 assault drones, almost 1,560 guided aerial bombs, and 62 missiles,” as he renewed his enchantment to allies for extra air defence.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence has claimed that it had focused a metallurgical plant in Kryvyi Rih and several other military-industrial websites in Kyiv, together with a producing facility for Ukraine’s Flamingo missiles. The domestically produced missiles are more and more key to Ukraine’s long-range assaults on Russia, with Zelenskyy saying final week that Kyiv had used the weapons to assault a rocket analysis and manufacturing heart in Samara, roughly 900 kilometers (560 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
Additionally Learn: Russia Claims 600 Ukrainian Drones Targeted Moscow Overnight, 3 Hurt
Spillover in Europe
Romania’s Ministry of Nationwide Defence, in the meantime, mentioned {that a} Spanish Air and Area Pressure F-18 fighter jet shot down a drone that had entered Romanian airspace. The drone’s entry into the NATO member’s airspace was detected by surveillance techniques at 4:44 am on Sunday, the ministry mentioned, about 24 kilometers north of the jap metropolis of Galati close to the border with neighbouring Moldova.
Moldova is a landlocked nation between Ukraine and Romania.
The spate of drone incidents comes weeks after Romanian pilots shot down three drones over three days as Russia intensified assaults in opposition to Ukraine close to the border. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Romania has reported dozens of drone incidents, together with some which have crashed and exploded on its territory.
(With inputs from AP and AFP)
