At least 9 dead in drone strikes after U.S. and Ukraine sign minerals deal

KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian drone attack left at least seven people dead and a Russian strike on Odesa killed two people on Thursday, officials said, just hours after Kyiv and Washington signed a long-anticipated agreement granting U.S. access to Ukraine’s mineral resources.

The attack in the partially occupied Kherson region of southern Ukraine, which struck a market in the town of Oleshky, killed seven and wounded more than 20 people, Moscow-appointed Gov. Vladimir Saldo said.

“At the time of the attack, there were many people in the market,” Saldo wrote on Telegram. After the first wave of strikes, he said, Ukraine sent further drones to “finish off” any survivors.

Meanwhile, a Russian drone strike on the Black Sea port city of Odesa early Thursday killed two people and injured 15 others, Ukrainian emergency services said.

Regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said the barrage struck apartment buildings, private homes, a supermarket and a school.

Videos shared by Kiper on Telegram showed a high-rise building with a severely damaged facade, a shattered storefront and firefighters battling flames.

A drone struck and ignited a fire at a petrol station in the center of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, according to Mayor Ihor Terekhov.

Following the attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had ignored a U.S. proposal for a full and unconditional ceasefire for more than 50 days now.

“There were also our proposals — at the very least, to refrain from striking civilian infrastructure and to establish lasting silence in the sky, at sea, and on land,” he said. “Russia has responded to all this with new shelling and new assaults.”

The U.S. and Ukraine on Wednesday signed an agreement granting American access to Ukraine’s vast mineral resources, finalizing a deal months in the making that could enable continued military aid to Kyiv amid concerns that President Donald Trump might scale back support in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia.

Tymofiy Mylovanov, former economy minister and current president of the Kyiv School of Economics, said Thursday that despite what he described as “unimaginable pressure” during negotiations on the newly signed minerals deal, Ukraine succeeded in defending its interests.

“This is a huge political and diplomatic win for Ukraine,” Mylovanov wrote on Facebook. “All the draconian demands of the other side were canceled. The deal looks fair.”

Reaction to the signing was generally muted in Moscow on Wednesday, a holiday in Russia. But the deputy chair of Russia’s National Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that Trump had forced Ukraine to effectively “pay” for American military aid with its mineral resources.

“Now military supplies will have to be paid for with the national wealth of a disappearing country,” he claimed in a post on Telegram.

Vladimir Rogov, chairman of the Russian Civic Chamber’s commission on sovereignty, told Russian state news agency RIA Novosti that Zelenskyy had effectively handed Ukraine over to “legally prescribed slavery.”