Deadly Russian drone attacks on Ukraine resume after ceasefire expires

Six people have been killed and many injured in a slew of Russian drone attacks across Ukraine on Wednesday, Volodymyr Zelensky has said.

He added that Moscow had launched 800 drones throughout the day and warned missile launches could follow.

Russia also struck the far western region of Zakarpattia, on the border with Slovakia. The Slovak government said it was closing the land border crossing indefinitely "for security reasons".

The daytime attacks followed another deadly day in Ukraine on Tuesday, when nine people were killed.

In Russia, officials said Ukrainian drones hit three industrial facilities overnight into Wednesday.

The governor of the border region of Belgorod said one man had died of injuries suffered in a drone strike.

The latest attacks came shortly after a three-day US-brokered ceasefire expired late on Monday.

Both Russia and Ukraine reported multiple violations - mostly along the vast frontline - during the truce, but no major aerial attacks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

In a post on Telegram, Dnipropetrovsk regional head Oleksandr Hanzha said there had been more than 30 Russian attacks on three districts throughout Tuesday.

Eight people were killed, 11 wounded, and dozens of houses were damaged, he added.

Local authorities also said one person was killed and four wounded in the Donetsk region.

In the north-eastern Kharkiv region, five people were reported injured and a number of residential houses damaged.

Russian drone strikes were also reported in the southern Odesa, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as in Poltava - Ukraine's central region.

Writing on Telegram on Wednesday morning, Zelensky said 14 Ukrainian regions had been targeted throughout Tuesday, followed by more attacks overnight.

He accused Russia of "purposely" targeting Ukraine's railway infrastructure and other civilian facilities.

Russian attacks continued on Wednesday, with Ukraine's Hur military intelligence warning such strikes could be "protracted".

In a statement, Hur said that in a first wave of attacks Russia was using a "significant number of strike drones to overload Ukraine's air defence system and strike civilian targets". It added that this could be followed by massive missile strikes.

Three people were then killed and four injured when a residential house was hit in the Rivne region, local officials said.

They added that in the Zaporizhzhia region, an elderly man was killed when a Russian guided bomb exploded nearby.

And in Kherson, at least 20 people were wounded as a result of attacks across the region.

The Ukrainian air force said that between 08:00 (05:00 GMT) and 18:30 (15:30 GMT) on Wednesday alone, Russia had launched 753 drones at Ukraine, after an initial 139 drones overnight. While many had been intercepted, 27 struck targets and debris had fallen from another 26, it said.

Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said 286 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted since Tuesday evening over 14 Russian regions and Crimea - Ukraine's southern peninsula which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.

The governor of the southern Astrakhan region, Igor Babushkin, said falling drone debris overnight had triggered a fire at a gas processing plant in the regional capital.

"There is no threat of air pollution," he added.

Local officials also said two industrial facilities were damaged during Ukrainian overnight attacks in the southern Krasnodar region and in the city of Yaroslavl, north-east of the Russian capital Moscow.

In recent months, Ukraine's military has intensified its strikes on key energy facilities across Russia.

Kyiv says they are legitimate targets, as they allow Russia to continue its war effort.