Ukraine death toll reaches 25 as Russia launches multi-region attacks

At least 25 people have died and dozens were injured overnight following Russian strikes in Ukraine, as Kyiv argued the Kremlin’s war goals are “unchanged” despite pressure from the US to resolve the conflict quickly, BBC News reports.

Oleh Syniehubov, head of Kharkiv Oblast State Administration, reported that a man was killed in a Russian attack on Kivsharivka, Kharkiv Oblast, on March 8, 2025. 

“Today, around 15:00, the Russians shelled Kivsharivka, the Kupiansk District, with artillery. A 41-year-old civilian man who was walking down the street was killed. Law enforcement agencies are working at the scene,” he wrote.

At least 17 people were killed in the Donetsk region, officials say. At least 11 people have been killed and another 30 – including five children – have been injured in Dobropillya. And six people are known to have died in other parts of the region, according to the area’s regional head, Vadym Filashkin.

This includes one person killed in Myrnograd, three people were killed in Pokrovsk, one person – in Kostyantynivka and another person – in Ivanopillya.

Officials in the Kharkiv region say at least three men have been killed and another seven injured in a drone attack on Kharkiv.

Moreover, Russians killed a 54-year-old man by an unmanned aerial vehicle in Kherson dropping explosives on a “civilian car” this morning, the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, said.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said Russia’s overnight strikes show the Kremlin has “no interest in peace”. Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk says: “This is what happens when someone appeases barbarians. More bombs, more aggression, more victims.”

By way of background, Ukrainian experts point out that the US is trying to capitulate Ukraine. Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff said the US administration has an idea to “get down the framework for a peace agreement”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed hopes for a “meaningful meeting”. 

Meanwhile, the US has pulled its military and intelligence support for Ukraine, cutting the country off from crucial satellite imaging.

In an interview with Yanina Sokolova, the independent Ukrainian journalist Vitaliy Portnikov expressed confidence that US President Donald Trump has stopped military aid to Ukraine to mask his inability to influence Putin.

Analysts at the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) have reported that the US suspension of intelligence sharing will undermine Ukraine’s ability to advance and defend itself on the battlefield while exacerbating challenges in protecting civilians from Russian strikes. Five senior Western and Ukrainian officials and military officers, confirmed by the ISW, that the step of Donald Trump has aided Russian forces in making advances on the battlefield.

An unnamed officer told Time that the suspension has deprived Ukrainian forces of the ability to use “some of their best weapons systems”.

A Ukrainian government source said that the suspension most impacted Ukrainian operations in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, with Ukrainian forces losing the ability to detect Russian aircraft approaching Ukraine. This has compromised their ability to warn both civilians and soldiers of incoming Russian strikes.

ISW stated that it cannot independently verify statements about the effects on the ground of the US intelligence sharing suspension.

According to people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg news agency reports that the US has previously rejected a Canadian proposal to establish a task force to tackle Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of oil tankers as the Trump administration re-evaluates its positions across multilateral organisations.

The term “shadow fleet” is used to refer to aging oil tankers concealed to overcome Western sanctions imposed on Moscow since it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Earlier, editor-in-chief of the BlackSeaNews Andrii Klymenko called on countries not to label oil tankers as “shadow fleet.” According to Klymenko, it is Russia’s real fleet, trading with EU countries to earn funds to sustain its war against Ukraine.

Earlier, Zelenskyy stated that other countries’ failure to comply with sanctions against Russia should be treated as participation in the war against Ukraine.

Earlier, Bohdan Bernatskyy, a member of the Sanctions Policy Working Group of the Crimean Platform Expert Network, revealed at the Third Parliamentary Summit in Latvia that over 1,300 Russian military companies and 2 million industry workers continue operating, many without international restrictions.