Sides trade attacks; boy, 8, killed

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia fired missiles at western Ukraine that killed an 8-year-old boy, local officials said, and drones that Russian officials blamed on the Ukrainian military targeted Moscow for a third straight day but reportedly didn't cause significant damage.

Also Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced the firing of all the heads of regional conscription centers, part of his crackdown on corruption since the outbreak of Russia's war in Ukraine more than 17 months ago.

The step was taken after Ukrainian security services presented details of 112 criminal cases against draft board officials suspected of taking bribes and engaging in corrupt practices. Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post that the jobs should instead go to war veterans, including those with injuries.

The missile that killed the boy struck a house in western Ukraine's Ivano-Frankivsk region, about 60 miles from the Polish border, according to the office of Ukraine's prosecutor general.

But Ukrainian air defenses frustrated Russia's daylight attack on Kyiv, Ukraine's capital.

Debris from intercepted missiles fell on residential areas, including the premises of a children's hospital, without causing casualties, local authorities said.

Meanwhile, a drone fell in western Moscow after Russian air defense systems stopped it, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Nobody was hurt, he said.

The drone plunged onto the Karamyshevskaya Embankment, officials said, which is about 3 miles from a Moscow business district that was hit twice in previous drone incidents.

Reports of drones in the area disrupted flights at two Russian airports. Flights later resumed at Vnukovo airport, one of Moscow's busiest, and at Kaluga airport, southwest of the city. It was the third day in a row that Vnukovo airport halted flights due to drone attacks.

Meanwhile, the Russian ruble, which lost exchange value since the beginning of the year and after Western countries imposed sanctions, hit 99 to the dollar in Friday trading — its lowest level since the early weeks of the war.