A day after Moscow launched a “massive” attack on Ukraine's power grid, Ukrainian authorities have issued air raid warnings across the country as Russian bombers took to the skies after carrying out further deadly attacks.
The Ukrainian Air Force confirmed early Tuesday the “takeoff of several Tu-95MS from Engels airfield” in western Russia.
According to emergency services, two more people were killed and five injured in an attack on a hotel in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih overnight. Two more people were killed and four injured in drone attacks on the city of Zaporizhia, east of Kryvyi Rih.
The Kyiv region's air defense systems were deployed several times overnight to repel missiles and drones aimed at the Ukrainian capital, the region's military administration said on Telegram. Reuters witnesses reported at least three explosions overnight in Kyiv.
In Kryvyi Rih, Kyiv and the central and eastern regions of Ukraine, air raid warnings were in place for most of the night since about 11 p.m. on Monday.
Two civilians may still be under the rubble of the hotel in Kryvyi Rih, Serhiy Lisak, governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region where Kryvyi Rih is located, said on Telegram. Six shops, four high-rise buildings and eight cars were also damaged, he added.
Analysts at the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said in a note late Monday that Moscow “probably does not have the defense industrial capacity to regularly sustain such massive attacks on a similar scale.”
On Monday, Russia fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine, killing at least seven people and severely damaging the country's already weakened energy grid, officials said.
The Russian attack triggered widespread power and water outages, including in Kyiv, and came after Ukraine announced new progress in its advance into Russia's Kursk region.
On Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Moscow had fired at least 127 missiles and 109 drones in “one of the largest Russian attacks.”
102 missiles and 99 drones were shot down, said Ukrainian Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk, who described the attack as the “most massive” Russian attack.
Both the US and Britain condemned the attack, with US President Joe Biden calling it “outrageous” and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy calling it “cowardly”.
The German Foreign Ministry stated that “Putin’s Russia is once again saturating Ukraine’s lifelines with missiles.”
After the barrage, the state-owned power company Ukrenergo announced emergency power outages to stabilize its system. At the same time, train traffic was disrupted.
Since the invasion in February 2022, Russia has repeatedly launched large-scale drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, including retaliatory attacks on energy facilities.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the attack on energy facilities in a statement on Monday, claiming they were being used to support the Ukrainian “military production complex.”
NATO member Poland said its airspace was probably violated by a drone during the attack. “We are probably dealing with an object entering Polish territory. The object was confirmed by at least three radio tracking stations,” General Maciej Klisz, the operational commander of the Polish armed forces, told reporters.
Zelensky called on European air forces to help Kyiv shoot down drones and missiles in the future. “In our various regions of Ukraine, we could do much more to protect lives if the air forces of our European neighbors worked together with our F-16 fighter jets and our air defense,” Zelensky said in a speech.
Monday's airstrike came after Reuters security adviser Ryan Evans was killed in a rocket attack on a hotel in eastern Ukraine late Saturday night. Six of the agency's war-covering staff were staying at the hotel in Kramatorsk, the last major city under Ukrainian control in the Donetsk region.
Journalist Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey is in critical condition after the attack, Reuters reported on Monday. A second, Daniel Peleschuk, was injured, while the other three team members have already recovered, according to the agency.
In response to Zelensky's statement that the attack was carried out “intentionally,” the Kremlin responded that there was “still no clarity” about the attack.
Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report
