Russia's Defense Ministry said overnight strikes on Ukraine, which local authorities say killed at least 18 people, hit 10 military production facilities in Kiev, including factories producing attack drones, Reuters reported, quoted by BTA.
Russia also struck three recruitment centers for the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) in Kiev, the ministry said in a statement. It said the attack was in response to a Ukrainian drone attack last month on a student dormitory in the city of Starobelsk in Moscow-controlled Luhansk region, which killed 21 people and wounded 42, "as well as other terrorist attacks on civilian infrastructure."
Ukraine denies that it intended to hit the dormitory and said the target of the attack was a drone command center in the area.
Meanwhile, the Russian Foreign Ministry accused Ukraine of trying to destabilize the Black Sea region by carrying out attacks with unmanned naval boats and drones against civilian shipping, and then, according to the ministry, Kiev hypocritically blamed the Russian side.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova recalled the case of what she called a Ukrainian attack with naval drones on tankers near the Turkish coast in the strait Bosphorus on May 28, and said Moscow was ready to work with Ankara to try to stabilize the situation.
Reuters could not independently confirm that Ukraine was behind the attack.