Russia targets Kiev and Lviv with attack drones
Russia released dozens of attack drones over Ukraine before dawn on Tuesday, targeting the cities of Kiev and Lviv, far from the front lines where Ukraine’s counter-offensive yielded small gains and Russian forces sought to gain more territory in eastern Ukraine.
The Moscow army also fired on rescue workers in the flood-ravaged city of Kherson on Tuesday, Ukrainian officials said, killing one person and wounding eight others as they responded to the catastrophic fallout from this month’s destruction of the Kakhovka dam.
This is reported by the Ministry of Interior of Ukraine in a statement that unarmed state aid workers in Kherson had come under “heavy shelling”. It called the workers heroes and said “killing rescuers” during one of the country’s biggest man-made disasters was “an expression of fear”.
The drone strike on Kiev, the capital, was the first in more than two weeks. Russian forces repeatedly targeted the city in May, but lately there has been a relative lull — with the notable exception of the barrage of rockets fired at Kiev last week as a delegation of African leaders visited to hold a meeting. path to peace talks.
An air raid siren sounded in Kiev shortly before 3 a.m. local time on Tuesday and authorities warned civilians to take shelter. The warnings lasted more than three hours as the drones came in waves and from different directions, said Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration.
“Another massive airstrike on the capital,” he posted on the Telegram messaging app.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Russian troops had been launched 35 Iranian-made drones on targets, with the Kiev region “the main area of attack”. Air defenses had shot down 32 of the drones, it said, including more than two dozen near the capital.
The Air Force did not elaborate on what or where the three remaining drones hit, but air defenses in and around Kiev are much more robust than those for the rest of the country.
Lviv, in western Ukraine near the Polish border, has long been considered a relative haven from attacks closer to Russian territory. But the mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, explosions reported around 5 a.m. in and near the city and urged residents to seek shelter. Authorities said critical infrastructure had been hit, sparking a fire, but did not elaborate. There were no injuries according to the regional military administrator.
The shelling that killed the aid worker was part of dozens of Russian attacks on the southern Kherson region the previous day. A total of 57 attacks — from mortars, artillery, tanks and rockets — hit the region on Monday, the regional military administration said in a statement, adding that an ambulance crew had also come under fire and five people were injured.
The bombardment of Kherson, occupied by Russian soldiers for several months last year, has not stopped since an explosion two weeks ago destroyed the Kakhovka dam in the Dnipro River, sending running water into residential areas.
Rescuers have struggled under artillery fire to evacuate thousands of people from flooded homes. And the fighting in the region has created barriers to help, aid workers say.
Even now that the water has receded, the effects of the disaster have spread. Pollutants and pathogens moving downstream on the Dnipro and into the Black Sea have prompted Ukrainian health authorities to issue warnings about waterborne diseases.
Andriy Yermak, the head of the office of President Volodymyr Zelensky, said on Telegram that the Russian army had shot at salvagers clean up sludge.
The attacks came as Ukrainian forces made marginal gains in a counter-offensive in the south and east of the country. On Monday, Ukraine said troops had recaptured eight settlements in two weeks of fighting.
Ukrainian officials and military experts on Tuesday warned of a long battle ahead.
“In some areas our warriors are advancing; in some areas they defend their positions and resist the attacks and intensified attacks of the occupiers,” Zelensky said in an overnight speech. He added that he was confident that Ukrainian forces would prevail.
Even as Russian forces tried to repel the Kiev offensive, Moscow launched “offensive actions” in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk as part of a wider campaign to take more land in a part of Ukraine where it has been since 2014. holds a significant territory. the general staff said in a daily update on Tuesday.
According to Hanna Malyar, a Ukrainian deputy defense minister, Moscow tried to advance near Lyman, Bakhmut, Marinka and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region. Lyman fell to Russian forces last spring, but was recaptured by Ukraine in October.
“Despite the fact that the offensive of our forces continues in different directions in the south, the Russians also have their own directions of attack and are also going on the offensive,” Malyar said on national television.
The Russian military released a statement saying this was the case destroyed Ukrainian troops units and equipment in various locations, and withstood Ukrainian attacks – claims that could not be verified.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said on Tuesday that the counter-offensive would be much slower than the quick gains made in September, when Ukrainian forces recaptured much of the northeastern region of Kharkiv in a matter of weeks.
Russia, which had months to prepare the terrain it now defends, built an extensive network of minefields, tank obstacles, trenches and bunkers.
Cassandra Vinograd reported from Kiev, Ukraine, and Victoria Kim from Seoul. Matthew Mpoke Bigg contributed reporting from London, and Megan Special And Oleksandr Chubko from Kyiv.