At least 7 killed, more than 50 hurt as Russia, Ukraine trade attacks
May 21 (UPI) -- At least five people were killed and 50 injured in overnight Russian drone and missile strikes across Ukraine's eastern regions. Ukraine responded with retaliatory UAV attacks on Russia's Samara and Belgorod regions, killing two people and injuring several others.
A drone strike on a bus carrying agricultural workers close to the Russian border in Semenivka, in Chernihiv province, killed a man and injured two other people with a third man injured in a separate attack on a farm 30 miles away when the tractor he was operating was hit Wednesday morning.
In the Kharkiv region, one person was killed when a truck was struck by a drone near Kharkiv city and 15 people were injured in attacks elsewhere in the province, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said in an update on Telegram.
A 94-year-old woman was killed and another woman was injured in a drone strike on Konotop in neighboring Sumy province and a 52-year-old man and 32-year-old woman were injured in separate attacks in the province.
Two people were killed and 18 injured in the frontline regions of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk in attacks in Kramatorsk and in and around Nikopol district.
At least 10 people were injured in strikes targeting dozens of communities across Kherson province, in the south of the country, and two men were injured in Zaporizhzhia by a guided aerial bomb, the provincial military administration said.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the strikes were part of a wider coordinated attack involving at least two ballistic missiles and more than 100 drones, most of which were downed or disabled by Ukrainian warplanes or ground-based air defenses.
Russia's state-run TASS news agency said the Ukrainian attacks, involving more than 120 drones, targeted the southeastern city of Syzran, on the right bank of the Volga River, with two people killed and several injured.
Kyiv claimed the attack set state-run Rosneft's Syzran Oil Refinery ablaze with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sharing footage online of a large fire and black smoke billowing from the complex.
TASS said seven other regions were targeted including Belgorod province, which borders Ukraine, where three people were injured.
The strikes in both directions came three days after Kyiv launched a large-scale attack on Moscow on Saturday night, amid an escalation in the fighting.
At least three people were killed, one of whom was an Indian national, dozens of others were injured and an oil refinery was hit in the strikes which involved more than 550 drones.
Russian state media said it was the largest attack on the capital in more than a year.
Ukraine launched the strikes just days after a massive, sustained, day-long 'blitz' style raid on Kyiv that began on the evening of May 13, killing 24 people and injuring dozens.
Kyiv's initial retaliation was to send a wave of drones against the Ryazan oil refinery, 130 miles south of Moscow, setting it ablaze. The facility, also owned by Rosneft, is one of the largest in Russia.
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This story was originally published May 21, 2026 at 5:29 AM.