Russian strikes kill 15 in Ukraine as Canada offers aid for air defences

Russian forces have launched attacks across Ukraine, killing at least 15 people, according to Ukrainian officials, as Kyiv claimed responsibility for a drone attack that set off a fire at a natural gas plant deep in Russia’s Arctic region.

The attacks on Thursday came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited western Canada, with the North American nation pledging millions of dollars in aid for Kyiv to acquire air defence interceptors.

A Russian drone attack on Thursday killed at least four people in Pavlohrad, a southeastern Ukrainian town 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the front line, the Dnipropetrovsk regional prosecutor’s office said. More than 60 people were injured in the attack, and several shops and cars were also damaged.

Earlier in the day, two people were killed in an attack on a sunflower oil facility in Dnipro, according to Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. “This is no coincidence, but part of Moscow’s systematic terror campaign against American businesses and ⁠economic interests,” Sybiha wrote on X.

Overnight into Thursday, four people – two men and two women – were killed in a Russian attack in the port city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine, said Heorhii ⁠Reshetilov, the acting governor of the region. At least 19 others were wounded, he added on Telegram.

Three other people were also killed and at least 14 wounded when a jet-powered drone hit a shopping centre in the northeastern city of Sumy, according to Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy Regional Military Administration. Three of the victims were children, he said on Telegram.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, two Azerbaijani crew members were killed and two others injured in a Russian attack on a civilian tugboat, authorities in Kyiv and Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, said.

Ukraine’s Ministry of Infrastructure said on X that six other crew members received immediate medical assistance after the vessel, the TEDY, was hit.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence also said Russian forces struck a cargo ⁠vessel used ⁠to transport what it described ‌as military cargo in the Ukrainian port of ⁠Chornomorsk.

Canada’s support for air defences

As the attacks on the ground continue, Canada on Thursday announced 350 million Canadian dollars ($260m) in support for Ukraine’s air defence and energy infrastructure during Zelenskyy’s visit to western Canada.

“Canada and Ukraine finalised an agreement to deliver critical air defence interceptors [through] the United States Jumpstart mechanism,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said, adding that Ottawa and Kyiv had also reached a deal on drone production.

“Canada will always be with you,” Carney assured Zelenskyy after the leaders signed a separate deal pledging to conclude a “hundred-year partnership”.

Zelenskyy called the agreements signed in Calgary “serious”, and said they would help protect Ukraine’s “skies” as the war Russia launched in 2022 grinds on.

⁠The boost was announced as Ukraine struggled to repel attacks amid a shortage of air defence systems.

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Sergii Koretskyi warned on Thursday that Russian attacks ⁠on businesses and ⁠civilian infrastructure ‌are ”growing rapidly” and announced additional support ‌measures for enterprises.

Strikes on Russia

The Russian Defence Ministry on Thursday said it had attacked Ukraine’s Mykolaiv, but said it targeted a drone warehouse. The ministry said it also hit the Ukrainian port of Chornomorsk and two vessels near Odesa on the Black Sea.

The targets of the strikes were being used for military purposes, the ministry claimed.

The attacks came after Russian authorities said Ukrainian forces had launched a drone attack on the country’s northwestern Yamal-Nenets region, which is located some 2,800km (1,700 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Dmitry Artyukhov, the region’s governor, said the attack targeted an industrial facility in Novy Urengoy. The attack was repelled, but falling debris from the drone caused a fire, he said on Telegram. “The main thing is that there were no deaths or injuries,” he added.

Artem Zhoga, the Kremlin’s envoy to the Urals, said Wednesday’s strike was the first ever to hit the Arctic part of the region.

Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces (SOF) confirmed the attack in a series of posts on X.

“For the first time! Deepest strike of the war: Ukrainian SOF hit critical Russian plants more than 3,000 km away,” it said. “Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces carried out the deepest strike inside Russia since the beginning of the full-scale war.”

In the posts, the Ukrainian force claimed it “successfully struck” two gas plants, Novy Urengoy and Purovsky.

The Ukrainian force said the facilities play a key role in Russia’s gas industry, processing large volumes of condensate from gas fields across the Yamal region, processing millions of tonnes of condensate per year.

Ukraine has escalated its long-range strikes on Russia in recent months, in retaliation for daily Russian bombardment of Ukrainian towns and cities.

Authorities in Russia’s Belgorod region said a Ukrainian drone attack killed one person in an unnamed facility in the town of Novy Oskol. Six others were injured during the strike on Thursday.

Earlier this month, Ukraine’s Zelenskyy said his country’s drones would make Russian airspace “completely unsafe” for the duration of the war.

Talks to end the war

Zelenskyy said on Thursday there ⁠would be no trilateral ⁠meeting on how to end the war before the parliamentary elections ‌in Russia.

He said Ukrainian and US negotiators were in constant contact and hoped ⁠for progress in ⁠talks on energy and grain at the ⁠end of September, ⁠after a planned ⁠meeting with US President Donald Trump.

Russia is due to hold ‌a parliamentary vote on September 20.