Kamikaze drone attacks on Ukraine: a fresh attack by Russian air-borne attacks on Kyiv and Kiev’s air defense systems
A fresh onslaught of Russian missile attacks across Ukraine on Friday morning put the whole country under air-raid alarm and caused people to scramble for shelter, with strikes hitting critical infrastructure and knocking out power.
One person was found dead under the rubble of a destroyed building in the city of Kyiv, according to the Mayor. Another remains trapped, Klitschko said.
The lines were operating as usual, despite the reports of attacks on infrastructure near the main rail station.
Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, said that Kamikaze drones are attacking all of the country. The enemy can attack our cities, but they won’t break us. The occupiers will get only fair punishment and condemnation of future generations. And we will get victory.”
Zelenskyy’s chief-of-staff, Andriy Yermak, again called on the west to provide Ukraine with more air defense systems. “We have no time for slow actions,” he said online.
The Ukrainian Air Force’s spokesman stated that the enemy wanted to destroy the air defense system. Ukraine’s top military chief, Valeriy Zaluzhny, later said that 60 of the missiles were downed by the country’s air defense forces.
The picture of the Geran-2 was removed after commenters criticized him for his confirmation of a Russian strike on the Iranian drones.
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There is a meeting of European Union foreign Ministers in Luxembourg. The EU’s top diplomat told reporters before the meeting that it would look into the evidence of Iran’s involvement in Ukraine.
Kamikaze drones are small, portable weapons that are hard to detect and can be fired at a distance. They are easy to hit, and can be destroyed in the attack.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said there was no need for more “massive” strikes for now. A string of Russian attacks on the weekend killed 11 civilians, eight of which were in the east of the country, two in the south and one in the northeast.
Denys Shmyhal, the Prime Minister of Ukraine, said at a government meeting that they have a goal to leave Ukrainians without light, water and heat.
The White House condemned Russia’s strikes against civilian infrastructure. The attacks showed that Moscow wanted to make it harder on the people of Ukraine, as winter is upon them, and thus put fear into their hearts.
Ukrenergo stated on Friday that more than half of the country’s energy capacity was lost due to Russian strikes.
As the sirens sounded, people in winter coats, hats and scarves gathered in Ukrainian underground stations. Huddled on escalators, their faces were lit by their phones as they scrolled through updates.
At least two people have been killed and emergency crews are searching through the rubble of a three-story building that was hit by a Russian missile. “There may be people under the rubble,” the deputy head of the presidential administration, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, said.
At least 10 missiles struck various targets in Kharkiv region, in the north, damaging energy facilities and a hospital, according to Oleh Syniehubov, head of the regional military administration. The power was out for a long time in the city. “There is a colossal infrastructural damage,” Kharkiv’s mayor, Ihor Terekhov, said, instructing residents to use so-called “invincibility points” – makeshift centers offering relief from power outages – to collect food and hot drinks, and recharge cellphones.
The southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia was hit by more than a dozen missile strikes, according to Oleksandr Starukh, chief of the regional military administration, but it was unclear what had been targeted.
Four people were killed in the south city of Kherson, which was liberated by the Ukrainians in November, because of continued rocket and artillery attacks, according to the region’s military administration. A man’s body was found in one apartment, which was set ablaze, and the multi-storey apartment building was also set ablaze. basic services are not restored in the city.
Oleksandr Kharchenko, director of the Energy Industry Research Center, a Ukrainian research and consulting company, said on Ukrainian TV that power outages had been rolled out prior to the strikes as a preventative measure to protect the grid from blackouts. He added that, in spite of this, the result of the attacks Friday morning would be “unpleasant.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the incident took place in the early hours of Monday, and three servicemen were killed by debris at the Engels airbase that houses the Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers that have been involved in launching strikes on Ukraine.
An MiG-31K, a supersonic aircraft capable of carrying a Kinzal hypersonic missile, was also seen in the sky over Belarus during the air attacks on Friday in Ukraine, according to Ukraine’s Armed Forces. But it was not clear from their statement whether a Kinzal was used in the attacks.
Last Monday, Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence, claimed that Russia had nearly exhausted its arsenal of high-precision weapons, but that it still had enough supplies to inflict harm. He added that Iran has not delivered any ballistic missile to Russia – analysis echoed by John Kirby, spokesman for the White House National Security Council (NSC).
The Biden administration is preparing to send the most advanced ground-based air defense system in the US to Ukraine, according to two US officials and a senior administration official. Ukraine’s government has long requested the system to help it defend against repeated Russian missile and drone attacks. The system that the country is going to get is the most effective long-range defensive weapons system available and officials believe that it will be used to secure airspace in eastern Europe.
He wouldn’t reveal what the next security assistance package would be, but he did mention that there would be another one and additional air defense capabilities.
On Tuesday, about 70 countries and international organizations pledged more than $1 billion to help repair Ukraine’s infrastructure. More security assistance for Ukraine has been approved by the Pentagon, including weapons, missiles and equipment to boost its air defense. In November, the US announced a $53 million package to support repairs to Ukraine’s power system.
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The Iranian-made, self-detonating Shahed-136 and Shahed-131 drones were launched from the “eastern coast of the Sea of Azov,” the Air Force said in a statement on Facebook.
Popko added that two areas in central and western Kyiv bore the brunt of the damage. A road in Solomyanskyi was damaged and fragments of a drone landed on a high rise residential building in Shevchenkivskui district.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in his nightly address Sunday, said electricity had been restored to a total of nine million Ukrainians following that round of strikes, but large-scale outages remained in some areas.
“I thank everyone who carries out these repair works in any weather and around the clock,” Zelensky said. It is not easy, but I am certain that we will pull through, and Russia will fail.
There are repeated attacks onUkrainians far from the eastern and southern frontline of the ground war, as Ukrainians seek some semblance of normality in the run-up to Christmas.
An artificial Christmas tree in the center of Kyiv was installed and decorated over the weekend, set to be illuminated with “energy-saving garlands” that will be powered by a generator at specific times, the city’s mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram.
Roughly 1,000 blue and yellow balls and white doves will decorate the tree in Sophia Square, with a trident placed at the tree’s summit. At the bottom of the flags of countries supporting Ukraine will be written.
Zelensky said in a virtual address that Ukrainian children are asking St. Nicholas for air defense and Weapons for victory for all Ukrainians.
Russian state news agencies reported that three Russian servicemen were killed by a Ukrainian drone that was shot down by air defenses as it approached a military airfield.
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The Governor of the Saratov Oblast said on Monday that law enforcement agencies are looking into the incident. He posted the comments on his official Telegram channel, after there were reports of an explosion.
He added that there were “no emergencies in the residential areas of the city,” and that no civilian infrastructure had been damaged. He also extended his condolences to the families of the servicemen, saying the government would provide them with assistance.
“If the Russians thought that the war would not affect anyone in the deep rear (of Russia) or anywhere else, they were deeply mistaken. Therefore, as we see, such things are happening more and more often, and let’s hope that this will only benefit Ukraine,” said Ihnat.
Also on Monday, a spokesperson for South of Ukraine’s Security and Defense Forces warned of a possible retaliatory Russian strike, referencing a similar incident earlier this month in the same region.
Earlier this month, CCTV footage appeared to show an explosion lighting up the sky in Engels. At the time, Gov. Busargin also reassured residents that no civilian infrastructure was damaged and that “information about incidents at military facilities is being checked by law enforcement agencies.”
In Ukraine, the night from Sunday into Monday appeared unusually quiet. The Russian forces didn’t shell the Dnipropetrovsk region for the first time in a while.
“This is the third quiet night in 5.5 months since the Russians started shelling” the areas around the city of Nikopol, Reznichenko wrote. Nikopol is located across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is under control of the Russian forces.
Ukrainian-controlled areas of the neighbouring Kherson region were shelled 33 times over the past 24 hours, according to Kherson’s Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich. There were no injuries.
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Several residential buildings in the capital Kyiv were destroyed, according to Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the lead for disaster response in the Ukrainian presidential office.
An explosion near a playground rattled the windows of nearby homes. The mayor reminded residents to charge their electronic devices and fill their water containers in the event of shortages.
Ukrainian air defense systems shot down 21 cruise missiles near Odesa, said Maksym Marchenko, the regional administrator for that region along the Black Sea. The city was without water or electricity because of missile strikes.
Ninety percent of Lviv, a city near the Polish border, lost power, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovyi. diesel generators were used to power emergency services. Public transportation stopped working there.
In separate comments to Russian media Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted Moscow would continue to pursue its objectives in Ukraine with “perseverance” and “patience.”
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There were six enemy targets detected in the city airspace. The Kyiv city military administration said the balloons could have been carrying espionage devices.
“They use them [balloons] as false targets, they want air defense to work against them. They need to deplete our air defense in order to distract us,” Ihnat said in a televised interview.
“The air defense was in action against all air targets. Most of the explorers were intercepted,” the Kyiv city military administration said. “The goal of the balloon launch was to detect and exhaust our air defenses.”
Ihnat claimed that Russian balloons “even flew into some other countries” and caused Moldova to close its airspace on Tuesday. CNN cannot independently verify those claims.