Russia launched multiple waves of missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian regions early Tuesday, resulting in the deaths of at least four people, according to Ukraine’s military. This follows Moscow’s largest air assault of the war on its neighbour the previous day.
In Kryvyi Rih, central Ukraine, a hotel was “wiped out” in the attacks, killing two people, regional officials reported. Another two individuals were killed in drone strikes on the city of Zaporizhzhia, located to the east of Kryvyi Rih.
Air defence systems in the Kyiv region were activated multiple times overnight to counter missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital, according to the region’s military administration on Telegram. Reuters witnesses reported at least three rounds of explosions in Kyiv during the night.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force reported shooting down five missiles and 60 drones during the overnight assault, while Russia launched 10 missiles and 81 drones.
On Monday, Russia launched over 200 missiles and drones, causing at least seven deaths and damaging critical energy infrastructure. U.S. President Joe Biden condemned the attacks as “outrageous.”
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, noted in a report that Moscow “likely lacks the defense-industrial capacity to sustain such massive strikes at a similar scale with regularity.”
Russian military bloggers, including the pro-war collective Rybar, described the attacks as an “act of retaliation” for Ukraine’s unexpected incursion into Russian territory—the first such incursion since World War II.
Russian Retaliation
The Kremlin stated on Monday that a response to Ukraine’s actions in Kursk was imminent. However, three weeks into the incursion, Kyiv claims to have made further advances. Moscow maintains it continues to target Ukrainian troops in the area but has yet to expel them.
The full impact of Tuesday’s attacks is still being assessed. Ukraine’s air force reported the launch of several groups of drones and the deployment of strategic Tu-95 bombers and MiG-31 interceptors from Russian airfields. These reports could not be independently verified, and there was no immediate comment from Russia.
The Kremlin denies targeting civilians in the conflict that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Russian defence ministry claimed that Monday’s strikes hit “all designated targets” in Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Destruction in Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia
Kryvyi Rih, Kyiv, and central and eastern Ukraine were under air raid alerts for most of the night starting around 2000 GMT on Monday.
In Kryvyi Rih, two civilians may still be trapped under the rubble of the hotel, and five others were injured in the attack, according to Serhiy Lisak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region. Additionally, six shops, four high-rise buildings, and eight cars were damaged.
In Zaporizhzhia, the attacks resulted in two deaths and four injuries overnight, said Ivan Fedorov, governor of the Zaporizhzhia region. He attributed the damage to Iranian-made kamikaze drones, referred to locally as Shaheds.
(With agency inputs)