A Russian drone strike on a postal facility in the north-eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy killed three employees of the Nova Poshta courier service on Saturday, according to local military authorities. The attack was part of a wider wave of Russian bombardments that, Ukrainian officials say, killed at least three more civilians in the Donetsk-region city of Sloviansk and wounded several in Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, where a residential high-rise was hit. President Volodymyr Zelensky, citing intelligence assessments, warned that Russia was readying missiles for a large-scale attack within 48 hours.

Simultaneously, Ukrainian forces launched one of their largest drone offensives of the war. Russia’s defence ministry claimed more than 300 UAVs were intercepted overnight, with debris sparking a fire at a logistics hub near Ekaterinburg, roughly 1,750 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. In occupied Crimea, explosions were reported in Simferopol. Moscow-installed authorities in the Zaporizhzhia region said a Ukrainian strike on a recreational area in Kyrylivka killed eight people, including two children. Independent verification of these claims was not immediately available. Romania’s defence ministry stated that an F-16 pilot safely shot down a drone breaching Romanian airspace near the Ukrainian border for the second consecutive day.

Western military analysts note that the expanding geography of the exchanges—from the Azov Sea coast to the Urals—illustrates an accelerating technological race in the drone war. Both sides are massing cheap, long-range UAVs to strike logistics, infrastructure, and civilian areas deep inside enemy territory. Ukrainian military intelligence has asserted the attacks are reprisals for Russian strikes, while Moscow routinely frames its actions as targeting military-linked infrastructure. In Brussels, NATO officials have repeatedly warned that stray drones and missiles pose a growing risk to alliance members, a concern underscored by Romania’s active interceptions.

The attacks occurred on the eve of a scheduled visit by President Zelensky to Washington, where he is expected to meet former President Donald Trump on 28 July. European diplomats view the trip as an effort to maintain Western military and political support amid signs of battlefield deadlock and the rising civilian toll. The dossier of diplomatic negotiations remains stalled, with Moscow insisting on territorial concessions Kyiv rejects, and no ceasefire plan has yet garnered traction. The next formal talks are anticipated after Zelensky’s return, but battlefield timetables continue to set the pace.