Russia attacked Ukraine Saturday with the largest drone attack of its kind since the start of the war, with Kyiv bearing the brunt of the attack.
Ukrainian officials said the capital was the main target of the Russian attack, which began at 4 a.m. local time and continued for six hours.
Ukraine’s air force said it shot down or disabled 74 of the 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones sent by Russia.
Saturday’s attack was “the largest aerial attack by drones on Kyiv,” said Serhiy Popko, head of the city’s military administration. Air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat shared that 66 drones were taken out over Kyiv and surrounding areas by the air defense.
Five people in Kyiv were injured during the hours-long attack in Russia, including an 11-year-old girl, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.
Buildings in districts across the city were also damaged by the attack, with a kindergarten set on fire by debris from a downed drone, Klitschko said.
Buildings were damaged around the city, including a kindergarten that caught fire from debris from the drowning.REUTERS
Nearly 200 buildings and 170,000 people in Kyiv were without power as a result of Saturday’s attack, according to officials, who reported damage to four power lines. Power was restored in the early afternoon.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has warned that Russia will launch an air campaign to wipe out the country’s energy system, as it did last winter. Drone strikes last week damaged the electricity grid in Odessa and Zaporizhzhia regions, resulting in power cuts in more than 416 towns and villages.
“It seems tonight we heard the offer. A prelude to winter,” said Serhiy Fursa, a Ukrainian economist.
Ukraine’s air force said 74 of the 75 drones sent by Russia in Saturday’s attack were shot down. AFP via Getty Images
Ukrainian President Vlodomyr Zelensky said the drone strike occurred on Holodomor Remembrance Day, which commemorates the Russian-created famine that killed millions of Ukrainians between 1932 and 1933.
“Deliberate violence,” Zelensky said on Telegram. “The Russian leadership is proud of the fact that it can kill.”
Besides Kyiv in north-central Ukraine, the northeastern region of Sumy and the southern region of Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia, Mykolaiv and Kirovohrad were targeted in the drone strikes.
Five people in Kyiv were injured in a drone attack Saturday. AFP via Getty Images
Russia’s massive drone strike comes amid a temporary reduction in Moscow’s Black Sea Fleet’s capacity to fire cruise missiles due to “logistical problems” at its Novorossiysk base, Ukraine’s military said earlier this month.
With Ukraine using long-range strikes to target Russia’s base at Sevastopol in Crimea, where it normally reloads its fleet of cruise missiles, Novorossiysk has emerged as Moscow’s best alternative site, The British Ministry of Defense reported.
British military officials said that redeploying and reloading missiles would require new delivery, storage, handling and loading processes.
Ukraine has warned that Russia will use an air campaign to take out its electricity infrastructure as it did last year. AFP via Getty Images
General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, who commands Ukrainian forces in southern Ukraine, wrote on Telegram that Russia had reduced the overall number of its airstrikes, carrying out only four on the southeastern front in the past day, but the ground war continued in the eastern and southern regions.
Tarnavskyi claimed on Saturday that the Russian army lost 502 soldiers in the past 24 hours, while 24 pieces of military equipment were destroyed, including a tank and four armored personnel carriers.
With Postal wire.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
