Russia and Ukraine strikes kill at least 16 in 24 hours

Russian and Ukrainian strikes killed at least 16 people over the 24 hours to 26 September 2026, authorities from both countries said on Saturday. Ukraine said Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least six people in northeastern Sumy, Zaporizhzhia and the Dnipropetrovsk region, where a 17-year-old girl was among the victims. Russia said Ukrainian strikes killed four people in its Krasnodar and Belgorod regions.arabnews.com+1

The toll matters because both Moscow and Kyiv have stepped up long-range attacks after the deadliest summer since 2022, the year Russia launched its full-scale invasion. United Nations officials have warned about rising civilian casualties as strikes target critical infrastructure. The war is now in its fifth year, and US-led talks to end the fighting have not produced a breakthrough, while the Kremlin has repeatedly said it intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine.

Where the deaths were counted

In Ukraine, Russian strikes killed at least six people across three regions, Ukrainian authorities said. In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a 17-year-old girl was among the dead. In Zaporizhzhia, two women died under the rubble of their home after an overnight barrage of drones and missiles, the regional military administration said. A separate Russian attack killed two people in the city of Sumy, according to local officials.aljazeera.com

In Kyiv, several people were wounded a day after a daytime Russian attack killed seven people and injured 58 on Friday, forcing a halt to production at Ukraine's largest steelmaker. ArcelorMittal said on Friday that a number of strikes in recent days had killed five workers and badly damaged one of their sites. Ukraine's steel industry previously made up 15 percent of the country's exports.

Ukrainian strikes killed people inside Russia and Russian-occupied territory, officials said. Russia's southern Krasnodar region lost three people and two were wounded when a Ukrainian drone attack sparked fires at two industrial facilities, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram; Russian media later said an oil refinery was among the targets. Moscow-installed regional head Yevgeny Balitsky said Ukrainian strikes overnight into Saturday killed three people in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region.

Ukrainian strikes inside Russia

Ukraine also hit oil refineries in Russia's Perm and Novoshakhtinsk regions on Friday, causing a temporary halt to operations. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv struck an oil refinery in the Krasnodar region and a plant supplying Russian forces in the neighbouring Rostov region on Saturday. Ukraine has struck deeper inside Russia this year, hitting as far as the Urals and Siberia, and Zelenskyy called on allies to adopt more sanctions on Moscow.

Zelenskyy wrote on X on Saturday that Russia was escalating every single day and that stronger responses were needed to keep the war from spreading further. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday, accused Europe of doing everything it can to thwart peace talks in which the Trump administration is interested, and said Moscow would achieve its military aims in Ukraine no matter the circumstances.

Diplomatic track stays stalled

Zelenskyy said on Friday that Washington had proposed a meeting of Russian, Ukrainian and US officials in the United Arab Emirates, and that Kyiv was awaiting a US proposal on the date. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that every settlement proposal remained on the table, though Moscow was still weighing what served its interests, according to Russian news agencies. US President Donald Trump said at the UN General Assembly this week that a deal was going to happen.

On the ground in Kyiv's Solomianskyi district, residents of a Soviet-era apartment block hit by a Russian drone were clearing debris. Oleksandr Gorlachov, 43, said his deaf parents were outside the burning building in tears when he returned, and that his family was in constant stress but he was not going anywhere. Fellow resident Anastasiia Grygorovych, whose window fell on her, said she was considering leaving Ukraine altogether.

Russia's Defence Ministry said Russian forces struck a cargo vessel carrying military supplies near Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa on Saturday, and also hit a logistics hub there. Ukraine has pressed on with long-range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries and industrial sites. Zelenskyy said a Ukrainian drone hit a cafe in the village of Askaniya-Nova near Crimea on Friday evening, where Vladimir Saldo, appointed by Moscow to lead occupational authorities in the Kherson region, said rescuers found the bodies of two young girls born in 2004 and 2006, and a man was also killed in the same area.

No date has been set for the proposed US-brokered meeting in the United Arab Emirates, Zelenskyy said on Friday, adding that Kyiv was awaiting a US proposal. Lavrov's address to the UN General Assembly on Saturday set out Moscow's position that Europe is hindering negotiations, while Trump said at the assembly this week that a deal between Moscow and Kyiv was going to happen.