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Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper reported that Russian drones hit the Starokozache international border crossing with Moldova overnight, killing two civilians near the facility and injuring three more as fires broke out across the site. The strike destroyed a passenger bus, multiple trucks and several private cars while damaging key infrastructure, prompting the immediate suspension of all passenger and vehicle processing at the crossing. Sixteen people were evacuated by bus to temporary accommodation as emergency teams worked to extinguish the blazes, according to Kiper, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the casualties in a Telegram post while extending condolences to the families of those killed.
Moldova’s foreign ministry condemned the Russian attack near the Tudora-Starokozache crossing, describing it as a direct threat to the country’s security and to people living on both sides of the border. The ministry stated that a Moldovan driver was among those injured in the incident and extended sincere condolences to the victims. Prime Minister Vasile Tofan had earlier confirmed that 17 drones struck Moldovan territory in August alone, a total that exceeded the full count from the previous year, according to government figures.
In southern Russia, regional governor Veniamin Kondratiev said four people including a child died in the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk during what he termed a massive overnight Ukrainian drone attack. Russia’s defence ministry reported that its forces shot down 596 Ukrainian drones across the country during the same period as part of coordinated aerial operations. The mutual strikes came as Ukrainian emergency services worked to contain fires in the capital Kyiv triggered by separate Russian drone impacts on a 16-storey residential building and other sites, though no casualties were reported there.
Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko announced that responders had been dispatched to the scene of the strike on the apartment building in the early hours of September 9. Russian news agencies cited the defence ministry as claiming successful hits on a Ukrainian cargo vessel carrying military equipment in the Black Sea en route to Odesa and on a warehouse in Kyiv allegedly linked to drone manufacturing. The Russian strikes also damaged port, transport and civilian infrastructure in the nearby Mykolaiv region, where a local official said one person was killed and several others injured.
Ukrainian border authorities informed Moldovan counterparts immediately after the Starokozache attack and coordinated the closure of operations on both sides of the frontier. The incident marked the latest in a wave of strikes on Odesa-region crossings, with officials noting that four other facilities toward Moldova and one toward Romania had been targeted in recent days. Moldova’s border police separately reported evacuating all personnel from the Tudora side minutes before hearing explosions and seeing flashes from the Ukrainian territory.
Moldovan police recovered drone wreckage in a sunflower field near Mihăilenii Vechi in Rîșcani district the day before the border strike. A separate unmanned aircraft crossed Moldovan airspace from Ukraine before entering Romania near Ungheni, leading Romanian authorities to scramble fighter jets and temporarily close Iasi airport, according to Romanian media. These peripheral incidents have drawn Moldova deeper into the conflict’s aerial dimension even as the main battle lines remain farther east.
