KYIV - Russia fired a wave of attack drones and missiles at Ukraine that killed at least four people, authorities said Tuesday after the second night of heavy strikes across the war-battered nation. The overnight barrage came a day after the Kremlin launched one of its largest-ever aerial attacks on Ukraine, which targeted energy facilities and killed several people.
Ukraine’s air force said Tuesday it downed half of the 10 missiles and 60 of the 81 attack drones launched from several regions of Russia and from occupied-Crimea.
“Unfortunately, despite the effective work of our air defence systems, four people were killed and 16 were wounded,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on social media.
Whereas, Ukrainian authorities issued new air raid alerts across the country on Tuesday as Russian bombers took to the skies, a day after Moscow carried out a “massive” attack on Ukraine’s power grid.
Russia fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine on Monday, killing at least four people and battering the country’s already weakened energy grid, officials said.
The Russian attack triggered widespread blackouts and came after Kyiv claimed new advances in its incursion in Russia’s Kursk region.
Ukraine’s air force confirmed early Tuesday the “takeoff of several Tu-95MS from the Engels airfield” in western Russia, prompting air raid alerts across the country.
Three more people were killed in overnight Russian attacks, according to local officials, two in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rig and one in southeastern Zaporizhzhia.
On Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow launched at least 127 missiles and 109 drones in “one of the largest Russian attacks”.
Of those, 102 missiles and 99 drones were shot down, according to Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk, who described it as Russia’s “most massive” attack. The United States and Britain both condemned the assault, with US President Joe Biden calling it “outrageous” and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy branding it “cowardly”.
Germany’s foreign ministry said that “once again, Putin’s Russia is saturating Ukraine’s lifelines with missiles”.