While the dispute between Russia and Ukraine took place yesterday with “massive” mutual attacks from the air, Josep Borrell, high representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, asked for more weapons for Ukraine. As many as seven Russian regions were the object of the biggest attack by Ukrainian drones since the beginning of the conflict yesterday morning, according to the Moscow authorities.
In a night with hostilities on both sides, Kyiv said its air defenses had destroyed more than 20 drones and missiles over the Ukrainian capital, the most powerful attack since the spring. Two people died from falling debris.
Russian regions bordering Ukraine and Moscow are frequent targets of drones sent from Ukrainian territory. But yesterday they managed to reach a target located much further inland.
They managed to clear the civil-military airport of Pskov, capital of the oblast of the same name, which borders Estonia, Latvia and Belarus but is 800 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. The attack set fire to several Il-76 military transport planes parked at the airfield, according to Tass. The governor of this region, Mikhaïl Vedérnikov, explained in a Telegram message that the facilities had to be temporarily closed. He added a video in which a huge fire could be seen, explosions and alarm sirens could be heard. There were no victims, he pointed out.
Another six regions of western Russia had to activate their radars yesterday due to the arrival of enemy drones. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, air defense systems managed to thwart all attacks in Briansk, Oryol, Kaluga, Ryazan, Voronezh and Moscow province. It was the most significant drone strike in Russia since Russian President Vladimir Putin sent tanks and troops into Ukraine in February 2022 in what he calls a “special military operation.”
Sergei Sobyanin, mayor of Moscow, where the drones did not arrive this time, said it was an “attempted mass attack”.
The Bryansk region experienced several attacks. In its sky the defenses brought down seven drones. Two were heading for the television tower before they were shot down, the governor, Aleksandr Bogomaz, said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry also said it had thwarted Ukrainian offensive actions on the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed in 2014. The department headed by Sergei Shoigu reported the destruction of four high-speed military boats carrying landing groups of the Ukrainian special forces with up to 50 people.
While Kyiv does not usually claim strikes on Russian territory or in Crimea, it has recently warned that it will increase the number of drone strikes against Russian targets. In July, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, congratulated himself that “the war came to Russian territory”. From Moscow they refer to these actions as “terrorist acts”.
In the tug-of-war that the war has become, the territory of Ukraine was also attacked yesterday morning. There were explosions in the capital, Kyiv, as well as in the regions of Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhitomir, Odessa and the Kyiv region.
So that Kyiv can continue to defend itself, Josep Borrell demanded that EU governments help Ukraine “more and faster” during an informal meeting of defense ministers, held in Toledo.
Ukraine said yesterday that it had shot down 28 Russian missiles and 15 of the 16 drones that were fired overnight. “Kyiv had not experienced such a powerful attack since the spring. The enemy launched a massive and combined attack using drones and missiles,” Serhiy Popko, head of the Ukrainian capital’s military administration, told Telegram, according to Reuters.
Debris from the downed missiles fell on several buildings, a park and a school, Ukrainian officials said. Two people died from the impact.
The Russian Ministry of Defense, however, said that its forces had attacked several Ukrainian command and reconnaissance centers. “The objectives of the attack have been achieved. All the assigned targets have been neutralized”, he said.
