Seven killed in Russian drone strike on Ukrainian port city

Seven people have died after debris from a Russian drone hit an apartment block in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight, officials said.

A three-month-old baby was among the dead.

Regional governor Oleh Kiper said a further eight people were injured. He added that the Shahed drone was shot down by Ukrainian air defences, and that the falling debris hit the apartment building.

Ukraine’s armed forces reported that the Odesa region was attacked by eight drones, of which seven were shot down by air defences.

Across the country more widely, air defences shot down 14 of 17 drones launched against Ukraine, officials said.

Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov reported on Saturday morning that more than 20 settlements in the eastern Ukrainian province had sustained Russian artillery and mortar attacks, while high-rise buildings in the regional capital, also called Kharkiv, were damaged by a drone attack.

He said that there were no casualties, but that three people suffered an “acute stress reaction”.

In the partly occupied Kherson region, Russian artillery shelling killed a 53-year-old man on Saturday morning, the Kherson regional prosecutor’s office said.

Meanwhile, in Russia, a drone crashed into an apartment building in St Petersburg, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

Six people received medical help after the explosion rocked the building, the agency said, citing the press service of the city’s health care committee.

The Mash news site said the apartment building was hit by a Ukrainian drone.

The site published videos appearing to show the moment the apartment building was struck, showing a strong flash of light engulfing one side of the building and fragments of debris flying into the air.

Another video showed car alarms going off.

Russia’s defence ministry has not commented on the incident.