Ukraine hit by large-scale air attack – Kiev
The Ukrainian Air Force has claimed that a massive Russian barrage hit cities across the country on Thursday night and Friday morning. Officials nationwide have reported damage at multiple sites.
The alleged air raid, which has yet to be confirmed by Moscow, reportedly involved dozens of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat told the media “we have never seen so many targets on our monitors simultaneously.”
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a metro station was damaged, as well as warehouses in two separate districts of the Ukrainian capital. His office added that a business center was also set on fire.
Sergey Lisak, who heads the Dnepropetrovsk Region, reported that a shopping mall was hit in the city of Dnepr, the region’s capital. Oleg Sinegub, his counterpart from Kharkov Region, said “civilian infrastructure” was damaged, including warehouses and a medical facility.
Prime Minister Denis Shmygal reported there had been issues with the power supply in the city of Kharkov – which city Mayor Igor Terekhov confirmed – and damage in Lviv, Sumy, Odessa, and Zaporozhye Regions. The minister claimed that “most of the air targets were intercepted” by Ukrainian forces.
Ignat claimed on national television that Russia used “everything” in its arsenal from kamikaze drones to hypersonic air-launched Kinzhal missiles.
Moscow previously stated that Kiev tends to exaggerate the number of Kinzhal missiles used by Russia in the conflict in order to claim that it intercepted those projectiles.
The Ukrainian official estimated that Russia used 18 Tu-95 strategic bombers to fire air-launched missiles overnight.
Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, later said that the military had detected 158 separate launches and claimed that 27 drones and 87 cruise missiles were stopped. He put the number of Kinzhal launches at five.
Earlier in the week, Kiev celebrated what it hailed as a major success in the conflict: a Russian warship in the Crimean port city of Feodosia was damaged by air-launched cruise missiles.
