Twelve Killed in Ukraine as Drones Hit Novorossiysk

In brief:

• Russia killed at least twelve people and wounded 72 in strikes across Ukraine on September 9, according to local authorities in seven regions.
• A twenty four story apartment building was hit in Kyiv’s Darnytsia district, along with a passenger train running between Kharkiv and Izium.
• Ukrainian forces struck back overnight at a naval base and fuel oil terminal in Novorossiysk, destroying several Russian vessels, according to Ukraine’s own account.

At least twelve people were killed and 72 wounded in Russian strikes across Ukraine over the past 24 hours, local authorities in seven regions, from Kyiv to Zaporizhzhia, reported on September 9. The toll comes a day after Russia, as we reported earlier, resumed its assault on Ukraine and hit 29 locations, and the scale of this new wave shows Moscow’s leadership has no plans to ease off before winter sets in. Strikes of this magnitude land as the West, including the European Union, of which Serbia is a candidate member, keeps debating how much and how long to keep backing Kyiv, so the daily casualty count feeds directly into the tone of those talks.

The morning Russian strike hit a 24 story apartment building in Kyiv’s Darnytsia district, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said, adding that nine people were wounded. In the Kyiv region, two people were killed and seven wounded, including two children, according to Timur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration. Thirty one sites were damaged: eleven houses, two apartment buildings, five production and storage facilities, one administrative building, one utility building, and twelve vehicles.

“Behind every number is someone’s life, someone’s home, someone’s property. And this is once again the reality Russia is bringing to our land,” Tkachenko said in a statement.

Similar damage was reported in the country’s south and east. In the Kherson region, two people were killed and fifteen wounded, while in the Dnipropetrovsk region two also died and twelve were wounded. In the Odesa region, Russian drones hit the Starokozache international border crossing into Moldova: two civilians were killed, three wounded, and sixteen passengers were evacuated from a bus in time. The crossing was temporarily closed after the strike.

In the Kharkiv region, one person was killed and four wounded in strikes on the city of Kharkiv and its surroundings. In a separate attack, a Shahed type drone hit a train running between Kharkiv and Izium near the village of Iskra at around 10 a.m., wounding eight passengers. In the Zaporizhzhia region, one person was killed and seven wounded, on a day when Russian forces carried out 945 strikes on 46 settlements in the region, according to Governor Ivan Fedorov. In the Mykolaiv region, a woman was killed and four people wounded, including a child, in a combined attack, while in the Chernihiv region one person was killed and three wounded after a Banderol missile hit a hypermarket in Pryluky.

The strikes, according to Ukraine’s air force, involved 196 Shahed type drones, including jet powered versions, along with Iskander-M ballistic missiles launched from occupied Crimea and S8000 Banderol cruise missiles fired from the direction of the Sea of Azov. Ukrainian air defenses shot down or jammed 165 drones, while missile and drone strikes were recorded at 23 locations, with debris from downed aircraft falling at four more.

President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the strikes and said cleanup efforts were underway in seven regions, from Kyiv to Zhytomyr.

“Unfortunately, the international community’s response to these strikes, which take human lives practically every day, has been too weak. But a response is needed. Moscow must not enter the winter believing it can get away with missile and drone terror,” Zelensky said.

What was hit in Novorossiysk?

While Ukrainian cities counted the damage, Kyiv struck back with an attack that, according to the Ukrainian side, badly hit Russia’s Black Sea Fleet. Overnight between September 8 and 9, Ukrainian forces attacked a naval base in Novorossiysk, in Krasnodar Krai, and the city of Anapa, sparking fires at the base itself and at a nearby fuel oil terminal. The terminal is part of the Port of Novorossiysk, Russia’s largest, and has an annual capacity of about four million tons, so any disruption there has consequences beyond Russia, given that a significant share of Russian oil and oil products bound for world markets moves through Novorossiysk.

The commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces, Robert Brovdi, known by the nickname Madyar, said the strikes destroyed Russian missile carrying ships, a Su-33 fighter jet that had taken off from an aircraft carrier, an Mi-8 helicopter, a Kasta 2E2 radar, and a 92N6 radar used in the S-300 and S-400 air defense systems.

“The Novorossiysk naval base lost several warships, including missile carriers, overnight on September 9, in a combined strike by Ukraine’s Defense Forces involving the Unmanned Systems Forces,” Brovdi wrote.

Russia’s Defense Ministry, for its part, claims it intercepted 596 Ukrainian drones overnight over eleven Russian regions and occupied Crimea, without confirming the losses the Ukrainian side describes. The gap between the two accounts remains unverified, as does the exact number of people wounded in Ukraine itself: while the body of the Kyiv Independent’s report put the day’s wounded at 72, the same article’s headline said 66, meaning the figure shifted even at the outlet that first reported the story.

Kyiv has not yet said when it will release a final damage toll for the seven affected regions, and Moscow, as of the evening of September 9, had not officially confirmed the scale of its losses in Novorossiysk.