Two deaths, three injuries in Russian attacks on eastern Ukraine

Two people have died in Russian drone attacks in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin reported on Telegram on Sunday.

One person died and two were injured in the village of Staroraiske, south-west of Kramatorsk, and another died in Kostyantynivka, an industrial town to the south of Kramatorsk. One person was injured in Druzhkivka.

Filashkin did not report the nature of the weapons used.

The casualties came after Russia and Ukraine exchanged drone attacks overnight with Ukrainian forces downing 40 of the 62 drones of various types launched by Russia, the Ukrainian Air Force reported via Telegram on Sunday.

Nineteen drones struck seven different locations, it said.

The Ukrainian civil protection authority reported several apartment blocks damaged in Shakhtarske in the Dnipropetrovsk region, around 100 kilometres east of the regional capital of Dnipro.

Regional governor Vladyslav Hayvanenko reported on Telegram that 10 people were injured.

In Moscow, the Russian Defence Ministry reported downing 45 Ukrainian drones, with most of them being intercepted in the Samara and Saratov regions along the Volga River. No information on possible damage or injury was reported.

Orenburg Governor Yevgeny Solntsev reported drone attacks on a gas plant, with one strike leading to a fire in a workshop in the region, which lies in the Urals more than 900 kilometres from Ukraine.

There were no injuries to staff, and firefighting was continuing, Solntsev said.

Ukraine has been warding off a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022.