Zelensky vows more strikes after Ukrainian attacks on Russian targets

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has threatened further attacks on military installations in Russia, after Ukrainian strikes hit the Russian city of Kazan and a village in the Kursk border region.

"We will definitely continue to strike Russian military targets – with drones and missiles, increasingly with Ukrainian-made ones, specifically targeting military bases and Russian military infrastructure used in this terror against our people," he said in his evening video address from Kyiv on Saturday.

He said the clean-up operations after a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv on Friday had only just been completed.

The president also said that a cancer clinic in southern Kherson had been hit by a strike on Saturday. "Fortunately, there were no casualties: people – patients and medical staff – had taken shelter."

Last week, Russia used more than 550 cruise missiles, almost 550 combat drones and more than 20 missiles of various types against Ukraine, Zelensky wrote on X.

Zelensky's comments came after a Ukrainian drone attack on Saturday hit several residential buildings in the Russian city of Kazan, located far from the front line, according to local authorities.

The city administration announced on Telegram that the attack caused fires. No initial information about casualties was available.

Major weekend events were cancelled for security reasons and air traffic at the airport in Kazan, the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan, has been temporarily suspended, officials said.

The drone attacks occurred in three waves and from different directions, the Defence Ministry wrote on Telegram, accusing Ukraine of attacking civilian infrastructure.

Three drones were destroyed and three were repelled, it added.

No information was provided on possible military targets.

According to the aviation authority Rosaviation, the regional airports of Izhevsk and Saratov have also temporarily suspended take-offs and landings for security reasons. These restrictions usually last for a few hours.

Ukraine has been defending itself against Russia's full-scale invasion for nearly three years with Western support and frequently targets Russian sites as part of its counteroffensive.

A Ukrainian missile strike on the small town of Rylsk in Russia's Kursk border region killed five and injured 12, the newly appointed regional governor, Alexander Khinshtein, said on Saturday, correcting his earlier statements that six people had died in the attack.

Khinshtein said 88 homes in the town still had no heating.

The Ukrainian military launched a surprise offensive across the Russian border in the summer and has since occupied parts of the Kursk region.

Rylsk, home to nearly 15,000 people, is located about 30 kilometres from the border and serves as a deployment area for Russian forces aiming to repel Ukrainian incursions from the Kursk region.

In recent weeks, Ukraine has expanded its attacks on Russia, using its own and Western weapons systems. The attacks have mostly targeted military installations, supply routes and industrial facilities.