In intense missile and drone attacks carried out by Russia early Thursday on various parts of Ukraine, 8 civilians, including children, were killed and more than 50 others were injured.
Taking advantage of the severe shortage of air defense systems supplied by Western countries to Ukraine, Russia has been intensifying its daily attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Far from the battlefields in eastern Ukraine, Russian forces also carried out attacks on Thursday in the western regions bordering Poland. It is said that Ukraine has set up its weapons production and storage depots in this area.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia launched more than 70 missiles and more than 280 attack drones, and that Ukrainian forces intercepted and destroyed 260 of the drones.
Eight people were killed when the remaining missiles and drones struck their targets. In an attack in the Kryvyi Rih region, the hometown of President Zelensky, six people were killed, including children aged 6, 11, and 17, and their parents.
In a ballistic missile attack carried out on the capital Kyiv, a 31-year-old man was killed. A 56-year-old man was killed by bombs dropped by Russian forces on the industrial area of the city of Kherson. In a cruise missile attack on the western city of Lviv, 34 people, including 3 boys, were injured.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of having entered Polish airspace with one of its “cruise” missiles.
Ukraine’s counterattack: Russia shot down 258 drones launched by Ukraine in retaliation for Russia’s attack.
As the remaining drones struck, a major fire broke out at storage warehouses of the “Wildberries” company in Russia’s Penza and Udmurtia regions.
Photo caption...
A firefighter working to extinguish a fire that broke out at a market in Kyiv following Russia’s attack.