Deadly strikes hit both sides of the Ukraine war as civilian toll mounts

Russian-installed authorities in the Zaporizhzhia region said a Ukrainian drone struck a city market in Tokmak on Friday, killing five people, according to RIA Novosti and TASS. The region's Russian-installed head, Yevgeny Balitsky, said casualties were still being brought in. The reports could not be independently verified, and Ukraine did not immediately comment.

The strike followed a day of violence on the other side of the front. At least four people were killed in Ukraine, Al Jazeera reported, a day after what Kyiv described as the deadliest Russian attacks of the year, while two more died in Ukrainian strikes on Russian border regions. Russia's Defense Ministry separately claimed its forces had captured the settlement of Aleksandrovka in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Each government presents the fighting in its own terms. Moscow emphasizes Ukrainian strikes on markets and border areas and heavy Ukrainian battlefield losses, while Kyiv points to Russian bombardment of its cities and power grid. Both sides have sustained a campaign of long-range strikes aimed at the other's infrastructure and logistics.

The pattern of reciprocal deep strikes has become the defining feature of the war's current phase, pressuring civilian life and energy systems on both sides even as front lines move only slowly.