Ukraine struck two Russian landing ships and a radar station in occupied Crimea overnight and set fire to a drone factory in southwestern Russia, Ukrainian military officials said Sunday, while Russian drones killed a 16-year-old boy in northern Ukraine and a man in the south. The exchange pushed the cross-border air war into a heavier phase as the diplomatic track in Washington remained stalled.

Ukraine's GUR military intelligence said it hit two Russian landing ships, each valued at about $150 million, and destroyed radar equipment in Sevastopol Bay on the occupied Crimean peninsula, according to Al Jazeera. Ukraine's navy said it also struck the Atlant Aero factory in Taganrog, roughly 55 kilometers (35 miles) east of Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, using domestically manufactured Neptune cruise missiles. The plant designs and produces strike and reconnaissance drones, as well as components for larger unmanned aircraft that can carry guided bombs weighing up to 250 kilograms, Ukraine's General Staff said.

The factory hit

"This defense enterprise is an important part of the Russian military-industrial complex, where drones were developed and manufactured," Ukraine's navy said in an online post that included images of a smoke plume over the city, according to the Associated Press via PBS NewsHour.

Taganrog Mayor Svetlana Kambulova said the strike damaged commercial enterprises, a vocational school and multiple cars, and Russian regional governor Yuri Slyusar said three people were injured. Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces shot down 274 Ukrainian drones overnight, along with guided aerial bombs and a Neptune cruise missile.

Kyiv also hit the port of Tuapse on the Black Sea, killing at least one person and injuring another and damaging transport infrastructure, regional governor Veniamin Kondratiev said, according to Al Jazeera. It was the second strike on Tuapse in three days, hours after a fire from an earlier attack was extinguished.

The Russian barrage

Russia launched 236 drones into Ukraine overnight, 203 of which were shot down and 32 of which hit targets in 18 locations, Ukraine's air force said. In Chernihiv in the north, the body of a 16-year-old boy was pulled from rubble as rescuers cleared a house set ablaze by what the city's military administration head, Dmytro Bryzhynskyi, called a "massive" nighttime drone strike; three women and one man were wounded, he said on Telegram. In Kherson in the south, a man died of his wounds after a drone hit a van in the city center, and a second was hospitalized with blast injuries, regional administration head Oleksandr Prokudin said.

Russian strikes also hit railway infrastructure in Kharkiv and injured civilians in Sumy, Kyiv, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions, according to Ukrainian officials cited by Al Jazeera. "Tonight, the enemy is again attacking the Kyiv region with drones. Under the sights are peaceful people, homes," said Mykola Kalashnyk, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration.

Sanctions waiver extended

Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil logistics come as Washington has extended a 30-day waiver on U.S. sanctions against Russian oil deliveries that were loaded onto tankers as of Friday, a decision the Trump administration framed as easing supply constraints created by the war with Iran. The general license runs to May 16.

"Every dollar paid for Russian oil is money for the war," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, arguing that revenue the Kremlin receives from oil sales "is directly converted into new strikes against Ukraine." Al Jazeera's Audrey Macalpine, reporting from Kyiv, said European partners have asked Zelenskyy to scale back attacks on Russian oil exports while the waiver is in place; Ukrainian strikes on Russian oil facilities have continued.

Counterpoint and caveat

U.S.-brokered negotiations for a broader settlement remain stalled, Al Jazeera reported, with Russia demanding all of Donetsk — parts of which Kyiv still controls — and Ukraine refusing to cede territory, proposing instead to freeze the conflict along current front lines. More than 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have died in strikes since Russia's 2022 invasion, according to the United Nations. Russia has not acknowledged losing the landing ships in Sevastopol.

The Kyiv-Moscow air exchange has widened in tempo and geography. The next benchmark is the Trump administration's May 16 decision on whether to let the Russian oil waiver lapse.