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KRASNOGORSK: A Ukraine drone crashed into an apartment block in a Moscow suburb on Friday, wounding a young boy and four others, officials said, as both countries traded another night of aerial strikes.
In a rare strike close to the Russian capital, the drone hit the 14th floor of a residential building in Krasnogorsk, on the western edge of Moscow, the governor of the Moscow region, Andrey Vorobyov, said on Telegram.
AFP reporters saw a hole in the building’s facade and rubble inside one destroyed apartment.
“The bang was loud,” local resident Maxim told AFP, adding that it sounded “almost identical” to a car crash.
Russia’s defense ministry said it downed 111 Ukrainian drones overnight, most of them over the southern region of Rostov. Nobody was wounded, but the strikes cut power to at least 1,500 residents, Governor Yuri Slyusar said.
Russian shelling on Ukraine killed two people and wounded at least 17 in the southern city of Kherson, the Kherson region’s press office told AFP.
Russia has intensified heavy bombardments of Ukraine, targeting energy infrastructure ahead of winter. Rolling power cuts have been introduced across the country in recent days, including Kyiv, as the country rations electricity.
Kyiv’s air force said Moscow fired 128 drones during the night.
Ukraine has launched retaliatory strikes, typically hitting Russia’s energy infrastructure and oil refineries in a bid to cut Moscow’s export revenues.
Though it does target Moscow and its surrounding area, often forcing airport closures, hits are rare.
Kyiv’s Western allies have ratcheted up pressure on Moscow as the war enters a fourth winter, with the United States and European Union announcing new sanctions this week on Russian energy aimed at crippling its war economy.
EU leaders also took steps toward funding Ukraine’s defense for another two years, although they stopped short of approving a mammoth “reparations loan” backed by frozen Russian assets.

HYDERABAD: A passenger bus erupted into flames after a motorcycle crashed into it early Friday, killing at least 25 people and injuring several others in southern India, police said.
The fire tore through the bus within minutes, trapping dozens of passengers as it sped along a highway near Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh state, senior police official Vikrant Patil said.
Some managed to smash open windows and leap to safety with minor injuries while others were charred to death before help could arrive, Patil said.
The bus with 44 passengers aboard was traveling between the cities of Hyderabad in Telangana state and Bengaluru in Karnataka state. The accident occurred in Chinnatekuru village near Kurnool, around 210 kilometers (130 miles) south of Hyderabad.
The motorcycle rammed into the speeding bus from behind and got stuck, Patil said. It was dragged for some distance, causing sparks that engulfed the bus’s fuel tank.
“As the smoke started spreading, the driver stopped the bus and tried to put the fire out by using a fire extinguisher, but the fire was so intense he couldn’t control it,” Patil said.
Most passengers were asleep at the time of the accident. The bus was gutted and the unidentified bike rider also died, he said.
A team of forensic experts was investigating the incident.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Andhra Pradesh’s highest elected official, N. Chandrababu Naidu, offered their condolences to the bereaved families.
The deadly bus fire was the second such accident in India in less than two weeks. A suspected short circuit sparked a fire on a passenger bus in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan early this month, rapidly engulfing the vehicle in flames and killing at least 20 people.