Russian FPV drone kills 67-year-old driver in Polohy district as US-brokered May 9-11 ceasefire takes effect
A Russian FPV drone struck a civilian car in the Polohy district of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region on May 9, killing the 67-year-old driver on the spot and injuring a 62-year-old man and a 61-year-old woman, hours into a US-brokered May 9-11 humanitarian pause meant to enable an exchange of 1,000 prisoners on each side. The same overnight Russian assault, launched at 18:00 on May 8 with one Iskander-M ballistic missile from Crimea and 43 drones, also killed a 70-year-old man and his 49-year-old son in a strike on an agricultural enterprise in the Chernihiv region's Novhorod-Siverskyi district.
A Russian FPV drone hit a civilian car in the Polohy district of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region on Saturday, killing the 67-year-old driver on the spot and injuring two passengers, said Ivan Fedorov, head of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration. A 62-year-old man sustained shrapnel wounds to his arms and legs, and a 61-year-old woman was also wounded; both were taken to the regional hospital.
The strike came within hours of a humanitarian pause that US President Donald Trump had announced for May 9 to 11, designed to enable one of the largest prisoner exchanges since the start of the full-scale invasion — 1,000 detainees from each side.
The Polohy strike was part of a broader Russian aerial operation that began at 18:00 on May 8 local time. The Ukrainian Air Force reported one Iskander-M ballistic missile launched from temporarily occupied Crimea, plus 43 drones — Shahed UAVs, Gerbera, Italmas and Parodiya decoy drones launched from the Kursk, Oryol, Primorsko-Akhtarsk and Millerovo directions. As of 08:00 on May 9, Ukrainian air defence had shot down or suppressed 34 of the 43 drones across the south, north and east of the country. The missile and nine drones hit at six locations; debris from intercepted targets fell at two more.
In the Chernihiv region, a separate drone strike late Friday on an agricultural enterprise in a border village of the Novhorod-Siverskyi district set off a fire that killed a 70-year-old man and his 49-year-old son, and injured a 55-year-old man, the State Emergency Service reported. Emergency crews extinguished the blaze.
President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a formal decree excluding Moscow's Red Square from Ukraine's military target list during Russia's Victory Day parade, which began at 10:00 local time on Saturday, designating specific coordinates around the parade area as off-limits to Ukrainian weapons to safeguard the prisoner exchange. "Red Square is less important to us than the lives of Ukrainian POWs," he said. Ukrainian officials reiterated that their military posture during the truce will follow a principle of reciprocity tied to Russian compliance.
Over the previous 24 hours, Russian forces had carried out 738 strikes on 31 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region, leaving two people injured in the Zaporizhzhia district, according to earlier reports.