• 2025-07-03 03:36 PM

MOSCOW: Debris from a Ukrainian drone killed an elderly woman and wounded two others in Russia’s Lipetsk region, its governor said Thursday.

They fell on a building in Lipetsk, which lies about 400 kilometres (250 miles) southeast of Moscow, killing a woman in her seventies, Igor Artamonov wrote on Telegram.

Two other people received non-life-threatening injuries, he said.

In another incident, Artamonov said residents in the city of Yelets in Lipetsk were evacuated after a drone hit their apartment building, with no casualties reported.

Workers were also evacuated after a drone crashed in the parking lot of a Yelets business, he added.

Russia’s defence ministry said Thursday it had destroyed 69 Ukrainian drones overnight, mostly over its Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force, meanwhile, said it neutralised 40 Russian drones of the 52 launched overnight from late Wednesday.

In the Ukrainian city of Odesa, five people were wounded, including two children, in a Russian strike that hit a multi-storey residential building, regional governor Oleg Kiper said on Telegram on Thursday.

Photos posted by Kiper show flames and dark smoke pouring from the badly damaged building and rescuers surrounded by debris on the street.

A 74-year-old man in Kherson’s Dniprovsky district suffered an explosive injury, concussion and shrapnel wounds from a Russian drone attack, according to the region’s military administration.

More than three years after the start of Russia’s military offensive in Ukraine, fighting continues to rage, with efforts for truce at a standstill.

Ukrainian officials were caught off guard and appealed for clarity from the United States on Wednesday after the White House announced that it was pausing some weapons shipments to Ukraine.

Kyiv is contending with some of Russia’s largest missile and drone attacks of the conflict, and a halt to the delivery of munitions -- especially for air defence -- would be a significant blow.