Russian strikes kill 2 in Dnipro as Putin and Zelenskyy trade barbs

Kyiv,UPDATED: Sep 2, 2026 21:54 IST

Russian aerial attacks on Ukraine overnight and during the day on Wednesday killed two civilians in Dnipro and wounded several others, as the Kyiv and Odesa regions also came under fresh strikes, local officials said. The latest attacks came as the air war between Russia and Ukraine continued to intensify in the fifth year of the conflict, with the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine largely deadlocked and US efforts to broker a settlement yet to produce a path to peace.

The strikes unfolded against the backdrop of a sharp exchange between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy late on Tuesday. Zelenskyy warned foreign airlines that flying in Russia is not safe because of Ukrainian long-range drone attacks, saying that "Russian airspace will effectively be closing" and that the military pressure is aimed at forcing Russia to accept peace talks. Putin accused Zelenskyy of "state terrorism" and said, "We don't negotiate with terrorists."

Putin's remarks were rejected by Ukraine's Centre for Countering Disinformation, a government body, which said they were an attempt to shift blame away from Moscow. "A state that itself unleashed this war, that daily commits terror against Ukrainian civilians and destroys cities, is again trying to portray itself as a victim," the centre said. Russian Transportation Minister Andrey Nikitin dismissed any concerns about travel, saying authorities are constantly strengthening flight safety. "We will not allow any significant disruptions to civil aviation," he told reporters, according to Interfax.

At a late-night press conference at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan, Putin also spoke about reports that the Ukrainian military had used British-made drones to strike inside Russia. Asked whether Russia would strike British military facilities if the UK government continued to supply weapons to Ukraine, he did not rule it out. With what the report described as a small smile, he said it is "a military secret". China and North Korea, meanwhile, have provided military support for Russia, as has Iran in previous years.

The comments from the two leaders came as European officials weighed their response to what they say is Moscow's latest campaign of sabotage and disruption across the continent aimed at weakening support for Ukraine. Germany on Tuesday blamed Russia for an attempted attack at Leipzig/Halle Airport last month using a drone carrying explosives.

According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia fired 174 attack drones, about half of them jet-powered drones that are harder to stop and are being used more often by Moscow, along with two ballistic missiles and two air-launched missiles. In Dnipro, the strikes killed a man and a woman and hit food warehouses belonging to a retail chain, wounding at least six people, Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said. Ukrainian officials have said recent Russian attacks have also hit other food storage depots, leaving some supermarket shelves empty, in what they describe as an effort to disrupt daily life and weaken public morale.

Zelenskyy said on social media that there had been too little international response to the latest attacks. "Unfortunately, there has been far too little response from the world and its most influential leaders to this latest Russian escalation of strikes," he said. "Every partner knows what is needed: air defence for Ukraine, sanctions against Russia, and a significant increase in defence production." In Odesa, officials said a 24-storey residential building was damaged, apartments on several floors were destroyed and eight people, including a child, were wounded. In the Kyiv region, a man and a woman were wounded by shrapnel in morning attacks, according to regional military administration head Tymur Tkachenko. It was the seventh straight day that Kyiv came under attack, and while the latest barrage was lighter than in previous days, it kept residents on edge.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences destroyed 130 Ukrainian drones overnight over 11 Russian regions, the Black Sea and Crimea, which Moscow illegally annexed in 2014. In Russia's Belgorod border region, acting Governor Alexander Shuvayev said Ukrainian drone attacks killed two people and wounded 16 others, and that Ukrainian forces hit the region 140 times over 24 hours. Ukraine's domestically developed long-range drones have repeatedly targeted Russia's oil sector and warehouses of online retailers in an attempt to affect the economy and bring the effects of war to the Russian public. Ukraine's Defence Ministry said that in August, its drones struck 12 Russian refineries, three fuel terminals and oil depots, and two gas processing and petrochemical companies.

Western analysts and officials said Russia's push deeper into Ukraine had lost momentum. The Institute for the Study of War said late on Tuesday that Russian advances in August were "a fraction" of Moscow's gains in the same month last year and that the spring-summer offensive had failed to break Ukraine's front-line defences. "Russian gains remain slow and limited," it said. The latest exchanges on the battlefield and in public statements underlined the continuing intensity of the war, even as the front line remains largely unchanged.

With PTI Inputs

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