Russian Strikes Hit Ukrainian Data Centres, Killing at Least Six

Russian airstrikes overnight and into Sunday killed at least six people across Ukraine and struck several major data centres in Kyiv, according to officials on both sides.

Three people died in the Zaporizhzhia region and a man was killed in Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He added that civilian infrastructure, including energy facilities and residential buildings in at least eight regions, was hit.

In the north-eastern Sumy region, the head of the military administration, Oleg Hryhorov, later reported that an elderly woman and a 16-year-old girl were killed by Russian precision bombs. Five other people were injured.

Zelenskyy said a data centre in Kyiv was struck twice during the barrage, injuring three people. Ukraine's mobile and internet provider Kyivstar said a building in the Kyiv region housing company equipment had been damaged, with an assessment of the impact still under way.

Russia's Defence Ministry said its drones hit a data centre operated by Vodafone, describing the company as one of the largest providers of mobile services and high-speed internet to the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Later on Sunday, the ministry said two more centres had been struck: the Kyivstar facility and another operated by Omega Telecom, which manages a large fibre-optic network across the country.

The ministry also said Kremlin forces struck three logistics centres in the Kyiv and Odesa regions, as well as two dry cargo ships en route to the Odesa port.

Odesa Region Governor Oleh Kiper said a "massive" overnight strike damaged a medical facility, a hotel, a shop and a warehouse storing grain crops, among other sites.

Meanwhile, Russia's air-defence systems shot down 96 Ukrainian drones between 8 p.m. Moscow time and 8 a.m., over regions bordering Ukraine, the annexed Crimean peninsula and the Black Sea, the Defence Ministry said. Ukraine's air forces said Russia launched 170 drones overnight, starting from 6 p.m.

The exchanges come as Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues well into its fifth year, with no sign of a peace deal. The United States has pushed both sides to agree to a pause on attacks against each other's energy assets, but neither has accepted.

Separately, Ukrainian drone manufacturer Pegasus Arms said it had halted operations indefinitely after significant damage from a Russian ballistic missile strike last week. It said the attack was the second on its production facilities, after a strike on September 2 forced production to be moved to a new location and resumed.