Deadly Russian Drone Strikes Have Increased On Ukraine’s Odesa 

Russian drones slammed into the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa overnight, killing two people and injuring at least 17 others, Ukrainian officials announced Saturday.

Emergency services said a drone struck a residential high-rise, damaging three floors and trapping residents inside, with the regional governor identifying that the victims were a married couple, with three children among the wounded.

“Rescuers pulled the bodies of two people from the rubble who died as a result of a hostile drone strike on a residential building,” Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.

Russia’s Defense Ministry was silent on the attack, on saying that it had intercepted more than 40 Ukrainian drones overnight sent over Russian territory, as well as in Crimea.

This comes as both sides increasingly rely heavily on smaller, short-range drones for battlefield operations and missions along their roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line – but the key port city of Odesa has been coming under more regular attacks, something which wasn’t a feature of the opening years of the war.

Also Saturday Kherson Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said that “Russian troops targeted critical and social infrastructure and residential areas in the region.”

In Donetsk, Russian troops have reportedly captured another village, as the slow grinding effort to solidify hold over the whole region continues, with no peace negotiations on the horizon.

A new plan of expanding west of Donetsk appears part of establishing Putin’s big security ‘buffer zone’. At this point it’s clear that Kiev’s backers in NATO can do nothing about this, except throw more money and weapons at the conflict.

Presidents Trump and Zelensky this week at the NATO summit reportedly discussed Ukraine procuring more US anti-air defense systems, which ironically enough will likely be purchased with US taxpayer funds already poured into Kiev’s coffers.