KYIV: A Russian drone hit a covered market in the eastern Ukrainian city of Nikopol on Saturday, killing five people and wounding 19, officials said, as Moscow pressed on with intensified daytime attacks.

The market, in Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region, was hit at 9:50am, the local prosecutor’s office said. Regional governor, Oleksandr Ganja, said in a Telegram post that three women and two men were killed.

He added that a 14-year-old girl was among 19 wounded and was in a “critical condition”. Five people were also injured on Saturday morning in the northeastern city of Kharkiv, near the front line, regional police said.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 286 drones overnight, of which 260 were intercepted.

In the northern Sumy region, 11 people were wounded in strikes on residential areas and civilian infrastructure overnight, police said. Images released by Ukrainian emergency services showed a building whose upper floors were engulfed in flames.

Three people were wounded in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, including a baby aged five months and a six-year-old boy, Ganja said earlier on Telegram.

In Russia, a missile and drone attack on the southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, left one person dead and four seriously wounded in the city of Taganrog, regional governor Yuri Slyussar said.

He said three local residents and a foreigner were all in critical condition but did not specify the origin of the attacks.

On the Sea of Azov, a foreign cargo ship was damaged by falling drone debris and caught fire, he added.

Talks between the two warring parties, mediated by the United States, have been stalled by the war in the Middle East. In comments to reporters published on Friday, Zelensky said he had invited an American delegation to Ukraine to relaunch negotiations with Moscow.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2026