Russia-Ukraine War: Russian forces struck Kyiv with drones and missiles during the night that claimed the lives of at least two people. Ukrainian officials called this a "massive, combined" attack. "Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring,” said Serhii Popko, the head of the city’s Military Administration.
This came after Russian officials on Wednesday said that Ukraine has launched its largest-ever barrage of drone attacks in western Russia that last for over four hours and struck military assets, particularly in the Pskov region. An airport was struck and four military transport planes were damaged in the attack.
The drone attacks targeted at least six regions in Russia, which appears to be the most extensive Ukrainian drone strike since the war began last year. However, no injuries were reported in the attacks. Ukrainian officials have not commented or taken responsibility for the incident so far.
The deceased in the Kyiv strikes were two security guards aged 26 and 36 years, while three people sustained injuries from falling debris, as per the Kyiv City Military Administration.
Explosions also were reported in the southern city of Odesa and the Cherkasy region. Ukraine’s air defenses have also destroyed 28 cruise missiles and 15 of 16 Iranian-made Shahed drones targeting Kyiv and multiple regions across the country overnight, the air force said on Telegram.
Ukraine's attacks on Russia
Ukraine has escalated aerial attacks on Russia in its counteroffensive to drive Kremlin's forces out of occupied areas in its country. They have increasingly targeted Russian military assets in eastern and southern Ukraine. They have also used naval drones against Russian ships in the Black Sea.
After the overnight attacks, Russia shut down the airspace of its Vnukovo airport in view of drone attacks on Pskov Airport on Wednesday. Besides, all flights to and from Pskov Airport will be cancelled for today in order to assess the condition of the runway, state news agency TASS quoted Region Governor Mikhail Vedernikov as saying on a social media platform.
At least 11 passenger flights were redirected to alternate airports. "The defence ministry’s forces are repelling a drone attack on an airport in Pskov," the governor wrote on Telegram. "More detailed information will follow after a meeting of the crisis center, which I will chair personally.".
In a similar incident, the civil aviation authority on August 21 said it temporarily closed all four major Moscow airports following an alleged drone strike on the capital city. The incident on Friday was the third time in the past month that this district of Moscow has been struck by drone debris.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, said that they have drones with a range of upto 500 kilometers (300 miles), though he did not take responsibility for any attacks inside Russia or on Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Blaming the West, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Ukraine was definitely relying on foreign help for the attacks because the drones “simply would not be able to fly such a distance without carefully researched information from Western satellites.”
(with inputs from agencies)
