A night of sirens across four Ukrainian regions: three killed, 14 injured the night before

The night between Monday and Tuesday passed in Ukraine with sirens in several regions at once. Explosions and fires were reported in Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Zaporizhzhia. Three people were killed - one in Kharkiv and two in Zaporizhzhia.

The heaviest strike hit Dnipropetrovsk. After the explosions, which began around 9:30pm following the air raid alert, a large fire broke out. Ukrainian air force had earlier warned of fast attack drones approaching the city. According to Ukrainian media, two Banderol-type drones were used, setting cars and lorries alight in a shopping centre car park. Russian sources claim the target was logistics zones in that part of the city. Further explosions were reported in Pavlohrad.

In Kharkiv, mayor Ihor Terekhov confirmed a drone attack in the Kyivskyi district of the city, and later a missile strike on the Osnovianskyi neighbourhood in which one man was killed. In Zaporizhzhia a drone hit a residential block and set one flat on fire; two people were killed in subsequent strikes. Regional administration head Ivan Fedorov released the figures.

Chernihiv, a second night running

In Chernihiv explosions were reported after several consecutive nights of drone attacks. Just a day earlier, on 24 August, a drone struck a residential block in the central part of the city and injured 14 people, two of them children.

Notice something running through all these reports: a shopping centre car park, a residential block, a central city neighbourhood. These are not military bases. These are addresses from everyday life, and such addresses look almost identical in every city in this part of Europe.

There is still no independent confirmation of exactly which weapons were used, and it is worth saying that openly rather than copying one side's claim. What is confirmed are the consequences, and those are counted in people.

Three and a half years into this war, nights like these no longer open bulletins in the world's media - they need a bigger number to reach a front page. That does not mean they have become rarer. It only means that getting used to it works faster than diplomacy.