Global News

Kyiv (Ukraine) (AFP) – At least 17 people were killed Friday in Russian and Ukrainian long-range strikes -- including just outside Kyiv and hundreds of miles east of Moscow -- as both sides intensify strikes with diplomacy in a deadlock.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said a Russian missile strike outside the Ukrainian capital killed six people, with a rescue operation ongoing and "dozens of people reported to be injured".

Zelensky also said that Russian aerial bombing killed five people in the frontline city of Sloviansk.

On the same day, Kyiv launched a wave of long-range drone and missile attacks on Russia.

Moscow said an attack on a factory more than 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) from the front in the city of Kirov killed six people.

Ukraine also attacked warehouses belonging to Russian online retail giant Wildberries outside Saint Petersburg -- targeting Russia's equivalent of Amazon for the third time this week.

The strikes come as the four-and-a-half-year war has seen more civilians dying this summer than in any period since the first months of Russia's invasion, according to the United Nations.

Zelensky said Kyiv struck a "key military enterprise" in Russia's Kirov, saying it "supplies components for the occupier's aircraft and missile systems, which are used in the massive attacks against ou cities."

Kirov Governor Alexander Sokolov confirmed Kyiv targeted a "factory" and that the six victims were killed on the spot. Another 26 were wounded.

While Kyiv has hit Russian towns as far as the Urals and Siberia, it has mostly damaged energy infrastructure, with deaths so far into Russia rare.

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