Sailors report attacks in Strait of Hormuz as conflict disrupts shipping, raising global energy fears and leaving vessels stranded near Iran

KYIV: Ukraine said Friday that two elderly residents of the embattled eastern Donetsk region were killed by a Russian drone as they were being evacuated.

Russian and Ukrainian strikes earlier killed another two people on either side of the border, officials announced, and two foreign-flagged cargo ships loaded with grain were hit in southern Ukraine.

The attacks came as President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Ukrainian negotiators were travelling to the United States aiming to reboot trilateral talks with Russia.

“The Russian armed forces attacked with an FPV (first person view) drone a vehicle belonging to a humanitarian mission that was evacuating civilians,” Ukrainian prosecutors said.

They said two elderly women had been killed — one died at the scene and another later in hospital. A 66-year-old man and a 65-year-old woman were wounded, they said.

Russian forces claimed to have annexed Donetsk region in 2022, several months after launching their full-scale invasion, despite not having full control over it.

The head of Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region said earlier that Russian attacks had killed a 30-year-old woman and wounded a boy, 10, and a man, 48.

The Ukrainian air force announced that Russia had attacked the country with 156 drones and that air defence systems had downed 133 of them.

The Russian attack targeted several regions including the southern port city of Odesa where officials said two cargo ships loaded with grain had been damaged, and that two crew members were wounded.

A Ukrainian drone strike meanwhile killed one man in the Russian border region of Belgorod, the governor announced on Telegram.

Talks between Russia and Ukraine, brokered by the United States, have been derailed by the US-Israeli war with Iran.

 The Sun Malaysia