Two male security guards, aged 26 and 36, who worked the night shift at a company in Kyiv, died early this morning after being hit by fragments of Russian projectiles shot down by Ukrainian air defenses, the capital’s Military Administration reported in a statement. .
According to the source, the Ukrainian Air Force intercepted more than twenty enemy projectiles in the sky of the capital, in what is the biggest Russian attack against Kyiv since last spring. At least three people have been injured in various areas of the city as a result of falling fragments that have also caused damage.
“The enemy launched a massive combined attack using drones and missiles,” explained the head of the Kyiv Military Administration, Sergey Popko. Multiple explosions could be heard in the center of the Ukrainian capital minutes after 5 a.m. local time (2:00 GMT).
As Popko explained, Russian forces launched last night’s attack in two phases. The first consisted of a wave of Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones fired in several groups from various directions.
Shortly after, the missiles were fired, which were launched from Tu-95 strategic combat aircraft.
In the Shevchenko district, where the two victims died, and in the Darnetsia district, several buildings were damaged as a result of falling shell debris, which caused fires in some of the affected places.
The Kremlin on Wednesday accused Kyiv of attacking civilian targets on Russian soil after the biggest drone strike that hit six Russian regions and the annexed Crimean peninsula last night.
“Terrorist activity in Kyiv continues, most of the drones are directed against civilian targets,” said the spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitri Peskov, in his daily press conference.
Peskov added that Russia will continue its “special military operation to eradicate such threats.”
The Kremlin spokesman thus commented on the attacks by dozens of drones against the Pskov, Briansk, Moscow, Oryol, Kaluga and Ryazan regions, as well as Crimea.
According to Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin was informed of this “massive” attack and the Ministry of Defense is now analyzing all the details of what happened to take “corresponding measures.”
When asked if the drones that hit the Pskov airfield, a region bordering Estonia and Latvia, both NATO member countries, could be launched from those Baltic countries, Peskov asked to wait for the experts’ conclusions.
According to Russian and Ukrainian media, between four and six Il-76 military transport planes were damaged in the attack on Pskov.
As far as the war advances are concerned, the Ukrainian counteroffensive continues in the southeastern region of Zaporizhia with the Kyiv forces pushing simultaneously to the south and to the southeast, while consolidating the positions conquered in recent days on this segment of the front, The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army reported today, which also reported Ukrainian offensive actions near Bakhmut (east).
“In the directions Novodanilivka-Novopokopivka and Mala Tomachka-Verbove we have made progress and consolidate the recovered ground,” said the spokesman of the General Staff, Andri Kovalov, on Wednesday.
Novopokopivka and Verbove are the next Ukrainian targets in the Zaporizhia region, where the Kyiv counteroffensive has so far made the most substantial gains and has just liberated the town of Robotine.
The governor imposed by Russia in the southeastern Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia, Yevgeny Balitsky, denied today that the Ukrainian Army controls the entirety of Robotine, and assured that the Ukrainian forces have not broken the first line of Russian defense in this sector of the front.
“Western sponsors (of Ukraine) claim in the media that the first line (of Russian defense) fell and things like that. The first line has not been overcome, and those who are in these positions or at least close to them know that. of them,” he said in statements to Russian public television.
According to Balitski, Ukrainian forces have not taken Robotine either, since “our guys are firmly holding the south” of the town.
