Russian forces launched 1,026 attacks on 56 settlements in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region over the past 24 hours, killing one person and injuring two others, regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov said on Saturday.
Writing on Telegram, Fedorov said the attacks included 17 airstrikes on villages including Malokaterynivka, Komyshuvakha, Novomykolaivka, Orikhiv, Omelnyk, Tymoshivka and Chervonyi Yar, all of which sit near the frontline.
A total of 786 unmanned aerial vehicles of various types, mostly FPV drones, struck the regional capital Zaporizhzhia and dozens of surrounding communities, among them Kushuhum, Bilenke, Antonivka, Rozumivka, Stepnohirsk, Mala Tokmachka and Ternuvate.
Three multiple-launch rocket system strikes were recorded in Kanivske and Shcherbaky, while 220 artillery strikes hit Stepnohirsk, Prymorske, Huliaipilske, Novodanylivka, Charivne, Bilohiria and other frontline villages.
Authorities received 68 reports of damage to infrastructure, homes and vehicles across the region. One person was killed and two others were injured in attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia and the surrounding Zaporizhzhia district, the governor said.
The bombardment is consistent with the grinding pattern of daily attacks on Ukraine’s southern frontline. On July 30, Russian forces struck Zaporizhzhia several times with FPV drones, injuring three people, according to local officials, and Friday’s regional toll included strikes on more than a dozen towns in a single wave.
Zaporizhzhia region is a strategic hinge of the southern front. Russian forces hold the occupied portion of the region, including the city of Enerhodar and the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, Europe’s largest, which has been under Russian control since the early weeks of the full-scale invasion. The frontline runs through villages such as Orikhiv and Huliaipole, which have been repeatedly pounded by artillery, glide bombs and drones.
Fedorov, who has served as regional governor since 2021, publishes near-daily attack tallies that have consistently topped several hundred strikes per day, with drones accounting for the overwhelming majority. The figures underscore how Russian forces have come to rely on mass-produced FPV drones as a primary strike tool across the entire frontline.
The sustained fire has driven repeated evacuation campaigns. Regional authorities say tens of thousands of residents have left frontline communities since the war began, while those who remain spend hours sheltering in basements during near-nightly drone alerts, a pattern repeated in towns across the region.
The regional toll is part of a wider picture along the frontline. Ukraine’s General Staff reported 207 combat clashes across the entire front in the 24 hours before Saturday morning, with the heaviest fighting concentrated in the eastern Donetsk region and in the south. Military analysts note that Russia’s daily attack volumes in Zaporizhzhia have remained consistently high through the summer, even as Moscow’s forces have struggled to convert bombardment into territorial gains in the region’s flat, drone-saturated terrain.
Sources: Ukrinform, Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration, Kyiv Post
Author: Ukraine Desk
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