Russian Strikes on Ukrainian Cities Kill Three, Including Two Women in Odesa

Overnight Russian strikes on three Ukrainian cities killed at least three people and injured dozens more, according to Ukrainian officials and local media reports. The attacks targeted the Black Sea port of Odesa, the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia and the capital, Kyiv, in a series of bombardments that began late Thursday and continued into Friday morning.

In Odesa, two women aged 44 and 50 were killed when strikes hit a residential area, destroying a house along with a veterinary clinic building, a warehouse and several parked cars, the Ukrainian National News Agency reported. A widely circulated photograph showed a man weeping over the body of one of the victims at the scene.

In Zaporizhzhia, officials said two people were killed, including a teenage boy, and more than 50 others were injured, among them eight children, when a residential apartment tower and an industrial facility were hit, according to Ukrainska Pravda. In central Kyiv, three people were injured when a drone struck a medical facility located near several Western embassies. The blast reportedly shattered windows at the nearby National Academy of Arts and forced firefighters to evacuate patients through smoke-filled corridors.

The strikes came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his military was again facing speed restrictions when operating SpaceX's Starshield military communications system, making it harder for Ukrainian forces to intercept drones. A similar connectivity limitation affected Ukraine last month for equipment travelling above roughly 100 miles per hour, an issue that prompted a public dispute between SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk and the previous US administration over responsibility for the restriction.

The renewed disruption has raised concerns in Kyiv about the reliability of satellite communications on the battlefield. SpaceX has not issued a detailed public statement on the latest reports. The attacks add to a pattern of overnight bombardment that has repeatedly struck civilian infrastructure across Ukraine, drawing international condemnation and calls for continued air-defence support.