KYIV: Russian attacks damaged production sites of Ukraine's state-run oil and gas company Naftogaz in the Poltava and Sumy regions, the company's CEO said on Monday. The facilities in the Poltava region came under attack for a second day in a row, Sergii Koretskyi said on Facebook, adding it was the 20th attack on the company's infrastructure since the start of the year.
Separately, Russian overnight drone attacks across Ukraine killed at least four people, including a mother and her 10-year-old son, and knocked out power for tens of thousands of people, Ukrainian officials said on Monday. The boy and his mother were killed in the attack on a residential area in the town of Bohodukhiv in the eastern Kharkiv region, the regional prosecutor's office said. It said six people had been hurt in the attack on the region, which has been a frequent target of attacks in the nearly four-year war that started with Russia's full-scale attack on February 24, 2022.
Ukraine's Air Force said Russia had launched 11 ballistic missiles and 149 drones against Ukraine overnight. Of these, 116 drones were shot down or neutralised and some missiles were intercepted and did not reach their targets, it said. The attacks on Ukraine have continued despite ongoing US-brokered peace talks with Russia. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the Trump administration wants Moscow and Kyiv
to find a solution on how to end the war before the summer. A "massive" Russian drone attack on the southern port city of Odesa killed one and injured two others, regional governor Oleh Kiper said. Residential infrastructure and a gas pipeline were also damaged, Kiper added on the Telegram messaging app.
A drone attack in the northern Chernihiv region killed a 71-year old man and injured at least four others, its governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said.
"People were asleep," Chaus said, adding that the attack had destroyed some buildings completely and damaged others. Nine people, including a 13-year-old girl, were also injured in a drone attack in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, its governor, Oleksandr Hanzha, said.
Russia damaged a high-voltage substation near the city of Novovolynsk in the western Volyn region that borders Nato member Poland, local mayor Borys Karpus said, leaving more than 80,000 consumers without power. Critical infrastructure in the city is now running off generators as workers try to restore electricity supplies, he said. Since autumn 2025, Moscow has intensified its attacks on the Ukrainian power grid and other energy infrastructure, leaving millions without power and heating in freezing temperatures. There were also new attacks overnight on railway infrastructure in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions, Ukrainian National Railways said.
Separately, Russia's Federal Security Service said on Monday that the men suspected of shooting one of the country's most senior military intelligence officer had confessed that they were carrying out orders from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU). Ukraine has denied any involvement in Friday's attempted assassination of Lieutenant General Vladimir Alexeyev, deputy head of Russia's GRU military intelligence service. Alexeyev has regained consciousness after surgery.
Russia said that the suspected shooter, a Ukrainian-born Russian citizen named by Moscow as Lyubomir Korba, had been questioned after he was extradited from Dubai. A suspected accomplice, Viktor Vasin, has also been questioned. The FSB said in a statement that both Korba and Vasin had "confessed their guilt" and given details of the shooting which they said was "committed on behalf of the Security Service of Ukraine."
Meanwhile, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul will meet his counterparts from Central Asian countries in Berlin on Wednesday, said a ministry spokesperson, with themes including energy and Russian sanctions circumvention on the agenda. The 20th EU sanctions package against Russia for its attack on Ukraine could see measures imposed on Central Asian states such as Kyrgyzstan for the first time, as companies from some of these countries are accused of systematically purchasing goods from the bloc and then reselling them to Russia. As a result, Germany's trade volume with countries such as Kyrgyzstan has significantly increased since the 2022 attack.
Wadephul will meet with the foreign ministers from Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, the spokesperson said on Monday. The spokesperson did not want to say whether Germany supports EU sanctions against these countries. "Central Asian states are increasingly important partners for us on many current issues," including energy diversification, resource security, climate change and measures against Russian sanctions circumvention, the spokesperson said. The German economy is also interested in raw materials from countries such as Kazakhstan. — Reuters
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