Four and a half years into Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a new wave of cross-border attacks targeting civilian infrastructure has left multiple civilians dead and dozens injured on both sides, marking a sharp escalation of violence that dims faint hopes for an early breakthrough in recent US-backed peace efforts. The deadliest of the latest strikes hit a crowded shopping mall in the central Ukrainian city of Pavlohrad, located in Dnipropetrovsk region, on Thursday. Ukrainian officials confirmed that four people were killed in the assault, with another 60 people wounded – including a child and two emergency service responders. Ukrainian Interior Minister Ivan Vyhivskyi noted the attack unfolded in broad daylight, when public streets surrounding the mall were already packed with local residents going about their daily routines. The strike left damaged storefronts and smoldering vehicles in its wake, with footage released by Ukraine’s State Emergency Service showing firefighters battling thick plumes of smoke rising from burning cars along the city’s streets. In a statement following the attack, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy offered heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, condemning what he called a deliberate strike on ordinary civilians. “The Russians used drones to kill people who were simply standing near shopping centres,” Zelenskyy said. This assault is only the latest in a string of Russian attacks on Ukrainian commercial hubs across the country this week. Just one day prior, a Russian drone strike on a shopping mall in the northern city of Sumy killed two people and wounded 20. A second Russian aerial bombardment on Sumy on Thursday injured eight more people, three of them children. Earlier this week, a Russian strike on a shopping mall in Zaporizhzhia, a southern Ukrainian city partially occupied by Russian forces, nearly destroyed the entire building, according to its owners. The mall was closed at the time of the attack, however, so no casualties were reported. Last month, an even deadlier assault on a Kryvyi Rih shopping center left at least 16 civilians dead and 130 wounded, Ukrainian officials say. Pavlohrad, a key logistics hub located close to the major central city of Dnipro, has already faced repeated Russian targeting; a strike on local storage facilities there just one month ago killed two people. Attacks have not been limited to Ukrainian government-held territory, either. Russian authorities report that Ukrainian drones have struck civilian sites in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, including a shopping mall in the port city of Mariupol this week and another attack in the city of Donetsk last month. The violence has also spilled across Russia’s internationally recognized borders, with Moscow confirming a new wave of Ukrainian attacks this week that have left casualties among Russian civilians. Overnight Wednesday, Russian officials say multiple Ukrainian seaborne drones targeted the popular Black Sea resort city of Sochi, wounding 28 people – two of them children. On Thursday, Russian authorities reported a Ukrainian drone strike on the town of Novy Oskol in Belgorod Region killed one person and injured six more. In Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia region, Russian officials said a Ukrainian attack on a civilian car Wednesday killed a 15-year-old girl and injured a six-year-old child and two adult women, while a separate strike on a civilian truck in the same region left one male driver dead. This latest surge of bloodshed comes just days after a long-awaited peace mission by envoys of US President Donald Trump, who held separate talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Zelenskyy in Kyiv over the weekend. Early assessments indicate the diplomatic push has produced little to no tangible progress toward ending the conflict, leaving civilian populations on both sides to bear the brunt of continued hostilities.