UKRAINE AIR DEFENCES shot down 35 Iranian-made drones over Kyiv in Russia’s latest night-time assault, as attacks across Ukraine by the Kremlin’s forces killed three civilians, officials have said.
Five people were injured by falling drone debris in the Ukrainian capital, where air-raid sirens sounded for more than three hours last night, according to Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration.
The Ukrainian Defence Ministry said that Russia shelled 127 targets across northern, southern and eastern parts of the country and used tanks, drones, mortars, warplanes, and surface-to-air missiles to bombard the regions.
Drone wreckage struck a two-storey apartment building in Kyiv’s western Svyatoshynskyi district, while other debris struck a car parked nearby, setting it on fire, Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post.
Facing economic sanctions and limits on its supply chains due to its invasion of Ukraine, Russia has routinely turned to Iran’s Shahed drones to bolster its firepower, launching up to eight cruise missiles at Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, authorities said.
Some of the Soviet-era cruise missiles fired against the Odesa region self-destructed or fell into the sea before reaching their targets, according to Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuri Ihnat.
In addition, six Russian rockets struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk during the sight and targeted the city’s industrial zone, a regional official reported on Monday.
The attack caused no casualties, according to the Donetsk regional governor, Petro Kyrylenko.
Russian authorities were preparing for celebrations on Tuesday of Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, amid tight security.
Many regions have cancelled their 9 May observances due to concerns that the events could be targets for Ukrainian attacks.
The date is normally a bank holiday in Ukraine too, but not this year due to the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday he had sent a draft bill to parliament, proposing a Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in the Second World War on 8 May and a Day of Europe on 9 May instead.
It is understood this move from the President is to further distance Kyiv from Moscow.
Zelenskyy equated Russia’s goals in Ukraine with those of the Nazis.
“Unfortunately, evil has returned,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram.
Although now it is another aggressor, the goal is the same – enslavement or destruction.
Meanwhile, Russian-installed authorities have begun evacuating residents of Tokmak, a town in the frontline southern Zaporizhzhia region, towards the Black Sea coast, Ukraine’s General Staff said.
Those working for Kremlin-appointed local authorities, as well as children and educational workers, are being relocated to Berdyansk, a Russian-occupied seaside city some 100 kilometres south-east, it said.
The report came just days after Yevhen Balitsky, the Russian-appointed governor of the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region, ordered the evacuation of civilians from 18 settlements there on Friday, including Enerhodar which neighbours the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Speculation has been mounting for months about the timing and focus of Ukraine’s expected spring offensive, with some analysts saying Kyiv might try to strike south into Zaporizhzhia in order to split Russian forces and cut Moscow’s land link to occupied Crimea.
In a separate development, the Russian military command has promised the Wagner Group, a private military company, additional ammunition and equipment for its offensive in the eastern city of Bakhmut, Wagner founder Yevgeniy Prigozhin said in an audio statement published by his press service.
The statement on Sunday came just days after Prigozhin on Friday threatened that Wagner fighters may pull out of the embattled city, where they have for weeks been Russia’s main assault force.
He accused Russia’s military command of starving Wagner of ammunition and causing it heavy losses.
The threat marked another flare-up in Prigozhin’s long-running dispute with Russia’s regular military over credit and tactics in the war.
In the statement on Sunday, Prigozhin claimed that Russian defence officials have since committed to providing the mercenaries with “ammunition and equipment, as much as is needed to continue” and given Wagner a free hand to take operational decisions in Bakhmut.
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