The ArcelorMittal mining and metallurgical complex in Kryvyi Rih, owned by Indian-origin billionaire Lakshmi Mittal and recognised as Ukraine’s largest integrated steel plant, came under a Russian missile attack.
The strike, launched in retaliation for a Ukrainian drone barrage, left two people dead and 14 workers injured. It also damaged critical energy infrastructure and blast-furnace operations, forcing a partial suspension of production.
Ukraine earlier launched hundreds of drones across Russia, resulting in at least six deaths in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial assaults of the conflict. Moscow regional governor Andrey Vorobyov described the attack as “one of the most massive drone attacks in recent memory.” Russia’s defence ministry reported that it had intercepted 822 drones nationwide overnight.
According to Vorobyov, an 83-year-old man was killed when a Ukrainian drone struck a private home in the Moscow region. He further said that another Ukrainian strike had ignited a fire at a Wildberries warehouse in the town of Podolsk. Wildberries is Russia’s largest online retailer and is controlled by the country’s richest woman, billionaire Tatyana Kim.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that around 600 drones were detected approaching the Russian capital, with approximately one-third of them destroyed over the Moscow region.
In a separate incident, another drone attack struck three towns in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, killing five people, according to local Governor Yury Slyusar. The assault, involving more than 150 drones, damaged several homes and a railway station and triggered a forest fire.
Ukraine has intensified its assaults on Russia this year, deploying long-range missiles and large numbers of drones against military industries and energy facilities.
It has also increasingly targeted depots belonging to the logistics giant Wildberries, destroying merchandise worth billions of dollars. These strikes have brought the conflict closer to ordinary Russians nearly four and a half years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
With frontline fighting largely stalled and negotiations frozen, both sides have markedly increased long-range attacks deep into each other’s territory, driving civilian casualties to their highest levels since the early months of the war in 2022.
