Russia launched a record 188 drones at Ukraine overnight, Kyiv said Tuesday, amid growing international tensions after Russia fired a nuclear-capable missile that could reach European cities.
The Kremlin declined on Tuesday to confirm that Ukrainian forces had again launched US-provided long-range ATACMS at Russia this week but blamed Washington for escalating the conflict nonetheless.
Moscow and Kyiv have been ratcheting up their drone and missile broadsides, with Ukraine recently firing US long-range missiles at Russia and the Kremlin retaliating with an experimental hypersonic missile.
The barrage came as ambassadors from Ukraine and NATO’s 32 members were due to meet in Brussels over Russia’s firing last week of the intermediate-range missile on the city of Dnipro.
“During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of Shahed strike unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified drones,” the air force said Tuesday, referring to Iranian-designed drones and putting the overall number fired at 188.
The air force said it had shot down 76 Russian drones in 17 regions, while another 95 were either lost from their radars or downed by electronic jamming defensive systems. It did not specify what happened to the remainder.
Moscow also fired four Iskander-M ballistic missiles, the air force said.
“Unfortunately, critical infrastructure facilities were hit, private and apartment buildings were damaged in several regions,” a statement said.
No comments:
Post a Comment