Russia launches major drone attack on Ukraine – as new Nato chief visits Kyiv

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Louise Thomas

Editor

Russian forces have launched a major drone attack on 15 Ukrainian regions, causing damage to energy infrastructure, residential buildings and schools.

The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 78 out of 105 Russian drones during the assault, but the aerial attacks damaged power lines and substations’ equipment in the Kyiv, Odesa and Ivano-Frankivsk regions in the past day.

The attacks caused temporary disruption of railway services in the southern Odesa region as well as power cuts in households, Ukraine’s energy ministry said.

Authorities said they had downed around 15 drones over Kyiv and the surrounding area during an air alert that lasted for more than five hours. The regions of Poltava, Cherkasy and Kirovohrad in central Ukraine reported minor damage to property.

Moscow denies targeting civilians but has regularly struck towns and cities behind the front lines. A Russian glide bomb also struck a five-storey residential building in Kharkiv, injuring at least 12 people including a three-year-old girl, local officials said.

The bomb hit between the third and fourth floors of the building on Wednesday night, starting a fire, the Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military said it had launched a missile attack on Russia, including using US-provided ATACMS [Army Tactical Missile System] ballistic missiles on a Russian radar station.

The military did not say when the strike took place or give the location of the radar station, but said the aim was to reduce Moscow’s ability “to detect, track and intercept aerodynamic and ballistic targets”.

The US sent ATACMS missiles to Ukraine this spring and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Ukraine had committed at the time to only using the weapons inside its own territory. Russia currently occupies about 18 per cent of Ukraine's territory.

Ukrainian drones also attacked the Borisoglebsk military airfield and warehouses for fuel and guided bombs in Russia's Voronezh region, a Ukrainian security source said.

Ukraine’s SBU security service was continuing actions to reduce the ability of Russian troops to use fighter jets with guided bombs to strike Ukrainian cities, and that attacks on Russian airfields would continue, the security source told the Reuters news agency.

The drones attacked warehouses, parking areas for Russian Sukhoi Su-35 and Su-34 jets and aviation fuel storage facilities at the Borisoglebsk airfield, according to the source.

The Independent could not verify these assertions.

It comes as the new Nato chief Mark Rutte met the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday to reiterate Nato’s pledge that Ukraine will one day be a member of the alliance.

In his first trip to Kyiv since being appointed, Mr Rutte stressed the alliance’s staunch support for Kyiv, telling Mr Zelensky that “Ukraine is closer to Nato than ever before”.

The Ukrainian president said he wanted to see Kyiv’s allies shooting down missiles and drones used by Russia in its attacks on Ukraine, just as some of Israel’s allies did when Tehran attacked Israel with missiles this week.

He also renewed his appeal to his Western allies to allow Ukraine to conduct deep strikes inside Russia with weapons supplied by them, saying they were “delaying” their decision. Wary of Russia’s response, Ukraine‘s allies have held off on making such a move.

On the front line, Ukraine’s armed forces commander General Oleksandr Syrskyi ordered defences to be strengthened in the eastern Donetsk region, a day after Kyiv’s forces announced they had withdrawn from the town of Vuhledar.

Russian troops are steadily inching forward in different sectors in eastern Ukraine despite Kyiv’s surprise incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region in August, which it was hoped would slow their advance.

Ukrainian troops are now on the defensive and the military announced on Wednesday that it was pulling troops out of the coal-mining town of Vuhledar, a hilltop bastion that was defended against intense attacks following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.