MOSCOW: Ukrainian drones struck the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky on Friday, killing three people and seriously wounding three others, the region’s Moscow-appointed governor said.

Images shared by Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, showed what appeared to be bodies lying on a street and outside a building, covered with blankets.

“This morning, Alyoshki was subjected to an inhumane kamikaze drone attack,” Saldo said, using the Russian spelling of the town’s name.

He said the drones targeted an aid distribution point in the town, accusing Kyiv of directing the attack “exclusively at the civilian population”.

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“As a result… three people were killed. Three more citizens were seriously injured,” he said.

Kyiv did not immediately comment but denies targeting civilians in Russian-occupied areas of the country.

Oleshky had a population of about 20,000 people before Moscow launched its military assault on Ukraine in February 2022.

It lies in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, on the Russian-occupied eastern bank of the Dnipro river.

The river acts as a de facto front line between Moscow’s and Kyiv’s forces, with both sides regularly accusing each other of firing artillery and drones across the vast waterway.