Ukrainian air defenses shot down a Russian missile barrage headed toward a military airfield in the country’s west overnight, the air force said early Friday. It said bombers launched the attack from the direction of the Caspian Sea. Later in the day, local Ukrainian officials reported that shelling in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions resulted in the deaths of several people, and injuries to others.
Moscow accused Kyiv a day earlier of striking a bridge connecting Russian-held territory in southern Ukraine to Crimea. As Kyiv mounts the early stages of a much-hyped counteroffensive in the south and east, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called for patience and said reclaiming swaths of the country “will take time.”
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Delivering mail in war-ravaged Ukraine: ‘There are still people living here’: A trio of Ukrainian postal workers, clad in bulletproof vests, make the perilous journey three times a month to Hulyaipole, a small city near the front line, Francesca Ebel and Kamila Hrabchuk report.
The mail carrier, driver and security guard “often make deliveries under fire, zigzagging along bumpy lanes in a small white-and-yellow van,” they report from Hulyaipole, which has lost most of its population.
“Somebody has to do this job — and nobody wants to do it,” said the mail carrier, Natalia Hrinenko.
