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KYIV, Ukraine — Russian planes dropped eight powerful glide bombs in a span of 90 minutes on residential districts of the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, killing one person and wounding dozens of others, regional chief Ivan Fedorov said Monday.
Russia has used glide bombs to smash Ukrainian towns and cities since it invaded its neighbor more than four years ago. The weapons are Soviet-era bombs retrofitted with guidance systems and can carry up to 6,600 pounds of explosives, leaving huge craters. Ukraine has no effective countermeasures against them.
The Sunday evening onslaught on Zaporizhzhia killed a 71-year-old woman and wounded 31 people, including a 16-year-old girl, as the bombs damaged 22 apartment buildings in four districts of the city, Fedorov said.
Other large-scale damage to civilian areas of Ukraine has resulted from Russian ballistic missiles, and late Sunday President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made yet another urgent plea to other countries to send Ukraine more U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems.
Only Patriot interceptors can reliably stop ballistic missiles, but they are in short supply due to the Iran war.
U.S. President Trump last week appeared to back off from his earlier commitment to give Ukraine a license to make Patriots itself. He said Friday that the licensing matter is still under discussion and said he hasn’t made a final decision.
Mr. Zelenskyy has suggested an alternative to Mr. Trump whereby Elon Musk allows Ukraine to use Starlink satellites to target ballistic missile launch sites inside Russia. Officials haven’t publicly said whether that is being considered.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces struck four bulk carriers carrying cargo for the Ukrainian armed forces, including three in waters of the Black Sea and one in the port of Mykolaiv, but provided no further information.
Meanwhile, three people were killed, and two were wounded in Kyiv’s overnight attack on Ukraine’s illegally annexed Crimea, the peninsula’s Russian-installed head Sergei Aksyonov said. He gave no further details.
Ukrainian drones also struck another major warehouse belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online shopping company, as part of a campaign that has hit more than a dozen of the retailer’s distribution hubs and caused severe disruption to its business.
A Wildberries warehouse in the Vladimir region east of Moscow caught fire in the latest attack, the company said Monday.
Three people were injured, Vladimir Gov. Alexander Avdeyev said.
The Russian Defense Ministry on Monday reported that its air defenses overnight intercepted 131 Ukrainian drones over a number of Russian regions, as well as annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.
The Russian Embassy in Rome blamed Ukraine for a deadly weekend bombing at an Italian restaurant in Moscow, describing it as an attempt to intimidate the Italian community in Russia.
The embassy said “Kyiv terrorists” wanted to “scare the Italians working in Russia and to show them that they too are in the crosshairs and could become the scoundrels’ next victims.”
It said the Saturday night attack on the Balzi Rossi restaurant killed five and injured 19, adding that its Italian chef and his staff were unhurt only thanks to a Russian security guard’s “vigilance and selfless dedication to his professional duty.”
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities.
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