A devastating image from southwestern Ukraine captures a man weeping over the bloodied body of a woman killed in a Russian drone strike Friday, as another attack struck a hospital in the nation’s capital.
The overnight assault across Odesa, Zaporizhzhia and Kyiv left at least three people dead and dozens injured. The barrage followed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s warning Thursday that his forces were again experiencing speed limitations while using SpaceX’s Starshield military communications system.
In the Black Sea port city of Odesa, two women, aged 44 and 50, were killed, according to The Ukrainian National News Agency. The strikes also damaged or destroyed a home, an animal and veterinary clinic, a warehouse and multiple vehicles.
A heartbreaking photograph shows a man collapsed over the body of one of the victims, with blood visible across her face and tangled in her hair.
In Zaporizhzhia, a southeastern city, two people — including a teenage boy — died when drones struck a residential apartment building and an industrial site, Ukrainska Pravada reported. More than 50 people were wounded, among them eight children.
Three others were injured in central Kyiv when a drone hit a medical facility near several Western embassies.
The Russian attack came shortly after Zelensky said Starshield had once again been slowed, complicating Ukraine’s efforts to intercept incoming drones.
The reported problem resembled an outage last month, when Ukrainian military equipment traveling faster than about 100 mph faced restricted connectivity.
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The disruption fueled a public dispute between SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and the Trump administration, with both sides accusing the other of imposing the limitation.
Friday’s strike on Kyiv also reportedly shattered windows at the nearby National Academy of Arts and came perilously close to patients inside the medical facility. Firefighters evacuated them through smoke, according to a witness.
“We were asleep when there was this massive boom. We all jumped out of bed straightaway,” a man identified as Oleksandr told The Guardian.
“There was glass all over the floor. People were running about … If it had hit a little further to the left it would have been much worse. We felt the shock wave.”
Ukraine also launched nearly 1,200 drones at targets inside Russia overnight, marking one of the largest coordinated attacks since the invasion began five years ago.
Moscow said its forces had intercepted most of the long-range drones, but acknowledged that strikes across three regions killed seven people, including a 12-year-old child, and injured 17 others.
With Post wires
