Russia hits Ukraine with 200 drones, missiles

Russia launched about 200 drones and missiles against Ukraine on Monday, killing four people and knocking out power in several cities across the country, Ukrainian officials said.
Kyiv said the attacks, targeting at least 10 regions, appeared to be a concerted effort by Russia to degrade Ukraine’s power systems ahead of next winter when its people need electricity and heating the most.
The new salvo was Russia’s most intense in weeks, 20 days after Ukraine surprised Moscow with a cross-border incursion into Russia’s southern Kursk region, in which Ukraine killed or captured numerous Russian fighters. Kyiv hopes to exchange Russian prisoners of war for Ukrainians.
Meanwhile, Russian forces have advanced in eastern Ukraine, closing in on the transport hub of Pokrovsk.
On Telegram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the Monday attack “one of the biggest combined strikes. More than a hundred missiles of various types and about a hundred Shahed drones. And like most previous Russian strikes, this one is just as sneaky, targeting critical civilian infrastructure.”
Zelenskyy said the energy infrastructure had suffered “a lot of damage.”
Russia’s defense ministry said its forces used high-precision weapons to strike important energy infrastructure in Ukraine that it said supported the military-industrial complex. It listed power substations, gas compressor stations and storage sites for aircraft weapons.
Poland said an “object” had entered its airspace and that it may have landed on Polish territory. A search for the object was underway.
“Most likely it was a drone, and we assume so, because the trajectory of the flight and the speed indicate that it was definitely not a missile,” a spokesperson for the Polish army’s operational command told Reuters.
Zelenskyy redoubled his call for allies like Poland to join Ukraine in shooting down missiles and drones over Ukrainian airspace.
Ukraine had no powerful long-range weapons at the start of the invasion 2 1/2 years ago but has since developed many models of long-range attack drones and used them to hit targets deep inside Russia, ranging from oil refineries to military airfields.
Over the weekend, Zelenskyy said Ukraine had developed a new “drone missile” that had been used to attack Russia and was more powerful and faster than other hardware in Kyiv’s arsenal.
The regions reporting strikes on power or critical infrastructure included Rivne and Volyn in the northwest, Khmelnytskyi in the southwest, Zhytomyr in the north, Lviv in the west, Dnipropetrovsk, Kirovohrad and Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, Zaporizhzhia in the southeast and Odesa in the south.
Dnipropetrovsk Governor Serhii Lysak reported one person was killed and multiple homes were damaged in his region.
In the western city of Lutsk, a Russian attack killed one person and damaged a residential building.
Ivan Fedorov, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, said one person was killed there, with Russian strikes also targeting energy infrastructure.
Kyiv Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko reported power outages in several parts of the Ukrainian capital, along with a resulting interruption in water supplies.
Officials in Lviv reported power cuts in their region after Russian attacks targeting energy facilities.
Poltava Governor Philip Pronin reported Russian attacks targeting an industrial facility and injuring five people.
Russia’s defense ministry said it shot down Ukrainian drones early Monday over the Bryansk and Yaroslavl regions.
Yaroslavl Governor Mikhail Yevrayev said one of the drones was downed as it tried to attack an oil refinery.
Russia’s Saratov region was the main target of overnight Ukrainian drone attacks, with the Russian defense ministry reporting it destroyed nine of the drones. Officials in Saratov said falling debris damaged a residential complex and injured one person.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region reported two injuries from a Ukrainian drone attack on a car.
Russian air defenses also shot down Ukrainian drones over the Kursk, Tula, Oryol and Ryazan regions, the defense ministry said.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.