Ukraine says Russian strikes killed three

Clergy and worshippers pay their last respects as they stand alongside the coffin of the late Patriarch Filaret prior to his funeral at St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery in Kyiv on March 22, 2026, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. [AFP]

Russian missile and drone strikes triggered air raid alerts across Ukraine on Tuesday, with attacks killing two people in Poltava and another person in Zaporizhzhia, regional military administrations said.

Air raid alerts were issued in the small hours in all of Ukraine except for Odesa region, according to regional authorities.

"As a result of the enemy attack on Poltava community, damage was recorded to residential buildings and a hotel. Fires broke out," Vitali Dyakivnych, head of the Poltava regional military administration, posted on Telegram.

"Unfortunately, two people died and seven were wounded as a result of the attack," he said, later revising the number of wounded to 11.

Farther south, Russia carried out a "massive combined missile-drone strike" in Zaporizhzhia, according to Ivan Fedorov, head of the regional military administration.

"One person died, five were wounded: the number of victims of the nighttime enemy attack on Zaporizhzhia is increasing," Federov posted on Telegram.

Six apartment buildings and two private houses, a shop, non-residential buildings, and an industrial infrastructure facility were damaged, he added.

On the eve of the strikes, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in his daily televised address that "there is information from our intelligence that the Russians may be preparing a massive strike".