Russia unleashed a massive overnight assault on Ukraine, firing more than 600 drones and 47 missiles at eight regions in what appeared to be one of the largest attacks in several days. At least seven people were killed and 30 wounded as strikes tore through residential areas from Chernihiv in the north to Odesa in the south.
Dnipro bore the brunt of the attack. Five people died when a Russian strike hit an apartment building in the central city, with rescue workers sifting through rubble on Saturday morning in search of survivors. More than 20 people were wounded there, including a nine-year-old child and two police officers. Across the country, the strikes damaged six homes, five high-rise buildings, a post office and a church.
President Volodymyr Zelensky described the scale of the bombardment as lasting ‘practically all night.’ Ukrainian air defences intercepted the vast majority of the incoming fire — the Air Force recorded 619 drones launched in total, with air defences shooting down or suppressing 610 drones and missiles combined. Russia’s own Ministry of Defence acknowledged that 127 drones had been destroyed over more than a dozen of its regions.
![An apartment building hit in Dnipro. Russian drone and missile strikes overnight also targeted other regions across Ukraine. April 25, 2026 [Serhii Chalyi/Reuters]](https://world-tension.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/articles/597/373bf237d0a749a7a2efe9d0002876e7.webp)
Two people were killed in the city of Nizhyn in the Chernihiv region. In Kharkiv, a one-year-old boy was among those wounded. Single casualties were also reported in Sloviansk and Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region, according to regional governor Vadym Filashkin.
As Russian munitions rained down on Ukrainian cities, Kyiv struck back with some of its most ambitious long-range drone operations to date. Ukrainian drones reached deep inside Russian territory, striking targets nearly 1,000 miles from Ukraine’s border. In Yekaterinburg, a building was hit, injuring six people. In Chelyabinsk, a local official said drones targeting an industrial facility were intercepted before causing damage.
The night’s events also drew in NATO’s eastern flank. British jets scrambled from Romania after Russian drones were detected approaching the border. Romania’s defence ministry confirmed it was investigating ‘the fall of an object’ on its territory close to the Ukrainian frontier. The UK Ministry of Defence rejected claims that British aircraft had shot down any Russian drones, with Romanian authorities clarifying that the drones had not breached Romanian airspace and that British jets had not entered Ukrainian airspace.
On the ground, Russia claimed to have seized Bochkove, a village in the Kharkiv region near Ukraine’s northern border, on Saturday morning. Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the assertion, and the claim remains unverified.
The ferocity of the overnight assault followed a deadly strike on Odesa the previous day, in which a married couple, both aged 75, were killed when Russian munitions destroyed residential buildings. A foreign ship was also struck in the port city during that attack.
The military escalation is unfolding against a backdrop of stalled diplomacy. Peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine remain at an impasse, with no breakthrough in sight. Zelensky travelled to meet Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Friday in their second encounter in recent months. The two leaders discussed strengthening air defence cooperation and exploring joint military production. Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours have shown renewed interest in Ukraine’s drone warfare capabilities following a series of Iranian attacks in the region in recent weeks.
Adding to the pressure on Moscow, the European Union approved a fresh package of sanctions targeting Russia’s energy, banking and trade sectors, tightening the economic vice on the Kremlin as the war grinds into another brutal chapter.
