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Feb. 17 (UPI) -- At least three people were killed and 12 injured in waves of Russian drone and artillery strikes across eastern and southern Ukraine overnight. Two people were killed in the frontline town of Bilytske, 10 miles north of Pokrovsk, after Russian forces opened fire with artillery in an attack that Gov. Vadym Filashkin said damaged six multi-story buildings, an administrative building, a store and a power transmission line.
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The Russians mounted at least 11 attacks in the area amid an aerial onslaught that saw 147 drones incoming to Ukraine from Russia's Orel, Bryansk, Kursk, Smolensk, Rostov provinces and the Russian Federal territory of Krasnodar Krai, southeast of Ukraine, according to the Air Force of Ukraine which claimed it downed more than half.
The neighboring Dnipropetrovsk province sustained at least 18 attacks as Russian artillery "pounded" towns and cities, followed up with attack drones that dropped munitions with one 52-year-old man killed and nine injured in Nikopol district on the right bank of the Dnipro River.
In an update on social media, Dnipropetrovsk Gov. Serhii Lysak said the man was fatally injured in Nikopol by flying shrapnel. Lysak said two businesses in the city were damaged along with 15 private houses, 12 outbuildings, four cars, a garage and gas pipelines and power grids.
In Chervonogrihorivska, just northeast of Nikopol, four women aged between 36 and 71 and a 62-year old man were injured by an attack drone.
A 64-year-old woman and three men aged 22, 26, and 54 were injured by artillery fire in Marhanets, 13 miles northeast of Nikopol, in shelling that destroyed eight apartment buildings, four private houses, an outbuilding, a garage and a car.
Lysak said an educational institution, an administrative building, industrial and municipal enterprises, including eight shops, a cafe, and a legal center were also damaged.
The governor of Kherson province, Oleksandr Prokudi, reported two people injured amid a barrage of drone attacks targeting Kherson and more than 30 other surrounding settlements.
Russian drones also targeted the capital province, Kyiv, injuring one man in Borysil district, 20 miles southeast of Kyiv, acting Kyiv regional military administration head Mykola Kalashny wrote on his account on Telegram.
The overnight assault came after a weekend in which a U.S. peace effort shifted into high gear with President Donald Trump saying Sunday night, ahead of imminent talks with the Russians in Saudi Arabia, that he did not believe Russian President Vladimir Putin intended to seize all of Ukraine and that he wanted peace.
"I think he wants to stop fighting. I see that," Trump told reporters after arriving at Palm Beach International Airport on Air Force One.
