At least three people have been injured and 100 tonnes of humanitarian aid were destroyed after a Russian drone strike on a warehouse in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia in the early hours of Saturday.
The injured were two police officers and a civilian, according to local officials. The damage from the strike is estimated at around $3 million. The aid was set to be provided to people who were internally displaced, as well as to residents in frontline areas of the war.
Shops, a multi-storey building and a public transport stop were also reportedly damaged in the attack.
Oleksandr Beluga, founder of the NGO Beluga UA, told local media “”Now everything has been destroyed, two days ago we received help from 5 trucks. There is approximately $3 million worth of damage here.”
Air strikes continue unabated
Aside from Zaporizhzhia, the regions of Kharkiv, Donetsk and Dnipro were also targeted in an attack which consisted of a total of 58 Shahedattack UAVs, as well as various types of imitation drones, reported the Ukrainian air force.
43 were neutralised, they said, with 23 being shot down and 20 having their signals jammed.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military also reported that it had carried out overnight drone strikes targeting two Russian chemical plants that were tied to the production of explosives.
“As part of efforts to reduce (Russia’s) ability to produce explosives and ammunition, the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ drone systems, in coordination with other Defense Forces units, struck critical facilities of Russia’s military-industrial complex overnight,” said Ukraine’s General Staff.
The chemical plants were reportedly located in Stavropol Krai and Samara Oblast. Both were identified as major suppliers of raw materials and components for the production of Russia’s weapons and fuel.
The Stavropol governor confirmed the strike, saying that drone debris had landed in the city’s industrial zone.
Bodies of 1,200 soldiers returned to Ukraine
On Friday, the bodies of 1,200 soldiers were returned to Ukraine as part of an agreement reached between Russia and Ukraine during their 2 June peace talks in Istanbul.
Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War released a statement saying that Russia returned 1,200 bodies, and “according to the Russian side, the bodies belong to Ukrainian citizens, in particular military personnel.”
It was the only tangible achievement of the Istanbul talks, with 1,212 bodies also being returned by Russia earlier this week, with 27 dead soldiers going the other way.
The two sides conducted a prisoners of war swap on Thursday, which included badly wounded and gravely ill captives. Their numbers were not disclosed, however.
