Russia Drones Kill Two at Moldova Border Crossing — SkimNews
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- Russian drones hit the Starokozache border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova, killing two and injuring three others plus a Moldovan driver; the crossing, 500km south of Kyiv, was shut.
- Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities killed a woman and injured 14, including two children, when a drone hit a nine-storey building in Kyiv, while three died and 20 were injured in a drone strike on a shopping centre in Sumy.
- Ukraine's military said it struck the Novourengoysky ZPKT oil refinery more than 3,000km from its border, a facility whose petroleum products and gas condensate it said feed Russia's war effort.
- Russia's defence ministry claimed its forces shot down 596 Ukrainian drones overnight, even as a Ukrainian drone attack on the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk killed four — including a child — and injured 29, damaging residential buildings, a church, and a preschool.
- Moldovan Prime Minister Vasile Tofan said 17 drones struck Moldovan territory in August alone — more than during the whole of last year — and accused those who "downplay these threats" of "denying reality."
- The strikes came a day after Putin and Trump spoke by phone about ending the war, and followed US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff's meetings with Putin in Moscow and Zelensky in Kyiv.
Why it matters: The drone war is escalating precisely as US-led diplomacy intensifies: strikes hit a border crossing into NATO-aspirant Moldova for the first time in the conflict, dragging a third country deeper in, while Ukraine demonstrated 3,000km reach against a Russian refinery — and Russia still claims near-total interception despite evident civilian tolls on its own soil.
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