Russia and Ukraine traded aerial attacks overnight, resulting in two deaths in each country and many people wounded on both sides, according to officials.
On the battlefield, the Russian military said Saturday that it seized the village of Zelenyi Hai in the eastern Donetsk region that Moscow illegally annexed but only partially controls, and the village of Maliivka in the Dnipro region. There was no immediate comment on the claim from Ukrainian officials.
Ukraine’s southern Dnipro and northeastern Sumy regions came under combined rocket and drone attack, local officials reported. Head of the Dnipro regional administration Serhii Lysak said at least two people had died and five were wounded in the barrage.
In the city of Dnipro, a multi-story building and business were damaged during the strike and outside of the city a fire engulfed a shopping center. In Sumy, the military administration said three people were injured. On Saturday, Russian drones hit a central square in the city of Sumy, and damaged the building of the regional administration.
Kharkiv sustained an intense aerial bombardment overnight. Ukraine’s State Emergency Situations Service said six people were hurt in Kharkiv, including four rescuers who were wounded in a double tap strike — where a second attack targets emergency workers trying to help people wounded in the initial attack.
According to the daily air force report, in total Russia targeted Ukraine with 208 drones and 27 missiles overnight. It said according to preliminary data, air defense and electronic warfare took down or intercepted 183 drones and 17 missiles but hits from 10 missiles and 25 drones had been recorded in nine locations.
Russia's Defense Ministry on Saturday claimed that it successfully struck military facilities in Ukraine that “manufacture components for missile weapons, as well as produce ammunition and explosives.” The claim could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in an online statement that “there can be absolutely no silence in response to such strikes, and Ukrainian long-range drones ensure this.”
“Russian military enterprises, Russian logistics, Russian airports must feel that the Russian war has real consequences for them,” Zelenskyy wrote.
In Russia, officials said that Ukrainian drones targeted multiple regions overnight. A drone attack on the Rostov region, on the border with Ukraine, killed two people, acting governor Yuri Slyusar reported.
In the neighboring Stavropol region, drones hit an unspecified industrial facility, governor Vladimir Vladimirov said on Telegram. He added that the attack sparked a brief fire, but didn't specify where exactly. Vladimirov said cellphone internet in the region was restricted because of the attack — a measure authorities regularly take across the vast country that critics say helps widespread online censorship.
An unconfirmed media report said videos posted online by local residents showed that the drones hit the Signal radio plant that makes jamming equipment. The Associated Press was unable to verify the claim.
Drones also targeted Moscow, but were shot down, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, and an unspecified industrial facility in the Penza region southeast of the capital, Gov. Oleg Melnichenko said.
Russia's Defense Ministry said that its air defenses shot down or intercepted a total of 54 Ukrainian drones, including 24 over the Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine, 12 over the Rostov region, six over the annexed Crimean Peninsula, four over the Azov sea, three over the Black Sea and a few others over the Orlov, Tula and Belgorod regions.
In Russia's Ingushetia region in the North Caucasus, a woman and three children were injured after a drone fell on a private house, regional health officials said.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Rescuers work at a damaged city hospital that was hit by a Russian guided air bomb in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Friday, July 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko)
