Hours after a salvo of Russian attacks, Ukraine’s anti-aircraft defense said it had shot down new explosive drones, including in kyiv.
Ukraine announced on Friday that it had repelled a nighttime explosive drone attack, launched by Russia less than 24 hours after new massive bombardments against energy infrastructure, depriving millions of Ukrainians of electricity.
Since October and a series of military setbacks on the front, Russia has adopted the tactic of hitting Ukrainian power stations and transformers with its missiles and drones, plunging the population into cold and black in the middle of winter.
Thursday’s attack, using dozens of missiles, was the tenth of its kind and was followed by a nighttime salvo of Shahed explosive drones, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, which claimed Friday morning to have downed the 16 Iranian-made aircraft that had been launched.
kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said seven of them targeted the capital and all were destroyed. The falling debris damaged the windows of two buildings in a southwestern district of kyiv, but no casualties were reported.
According to the Ukrainian presidency, other drones were shot down in the Cherkassy and Dnipro regions in the center of the country.
In a message posted on social media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that the war was “tough” but said he was convinced “that Russian aggression would fail”.
70 missiles in one day
According to an updated report, 58 of the 70 cruise missiles fired by Russia were shot down on Thursday. A total of four civilians were killed and eight others injured.
The Russian Ministry of Defense told him on Friday that his “massive strikes” the day before had “hit all the intended targets”.
Power cuts remained numerous, while power has already been heavily rationed across the country for weeks.
The millions of Ukrainians who do not have generators are therefore preparing to celebrate the New Year without electricity, sometimes without water or heating and under curfew.
According to the electricity company Ukrenergo, the “consequences of the damage on the functioning of the network are less than the enemy had expected (…) but the situation in the south and east of the country remains difficult”.
