May 28 (Reuters) - A Ukrainian drone attack killed three utility workers in a Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Thursday, the Kremlin-installed head of the region said.
The workers, a repair crew for the water supply company, were in a car in Vuhlehirsk, north of the city of Donetsk, when it was struck by drones, Denis Pushilin said on the Telegram messaging app.
A fourth man was seriously injured in the incident.
Pushilin said four people were injured in other incidents in parts of the region under Russian control.
Russia has called on Ukraine to abandon areas of the Donetsk region that it holds and said it is prepared to keep fighting until it secures full control over Donetsk. Ukraine has rejected the demand.
Pushilin said in March that Ukrainian forces remained in control up to 17% of the region.
Russian forces have been engaged in a slow advance through Donetsk, though Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other officials have said Kyiv’s forces have taken back territory and are now in their best position for months along the 1,200-km (775-mile) front line.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Thursday its forces had captured the village of Novovasylivka in the Kharkiv region, further north, where Moscow says it is trying to establish a buffer zone on its border.
In central Russia’s Volgograd region, regional governor Andrei Bocharov, quoted by Russian news agencies, said anti-aircraft units were repelling a massive drone attack. An apartment building was hit and energy and civil infrastructure was targeted, but no casualties were reported.
Russia’s Yaroslavl region, northeast of Moscow, also came under drone attack, with authorities temporary suspending traffic in the direction of the Russian capital, Governor Mikhail Yevrayev said on Telegram.
Both regions have large oil refining facilities, a frequent target of Ukraine which is trying to cut Russia’s energy revenue to bring the more than four-year-long war to an end.
On the Ukrainian border, Acting Governor Yegor Kovalchuk of Bryansk region said on Telegram that a Ukrainian drone strike on a village killed one person.
During an overnight attack on Ukraine on Friday, a Russian drone crashed onto the roof of a block of flats in the southeastern city of Galati in Romania, injuring two, Romanian authorities said.
(Reporting by Ron Popeski and Jekaterīna Golubkova; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Stephen Coates)
