Russian Iskander-M missile launchers are seen on Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in central Moscow on May 9, 2024. (Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
Russia unleashed the largest missile and drone attack in more than three weeks against Ukraine’s critical infrastructure, with air defense downing two-thirds of the missiles.
The total of 53 missiles of various types, including four Iskander ballistic missiles launched from Crimea, as well as 47 explosive-laden Shahed drones, targeted Ukraine overnight, Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk said on Telegram.
All but one of the drones were destroyed, yet 18 missiles were able to evade Ukraine’s air defense, he said without elaborating on damage.
“Russian terrorists don’t abandon their intentions to destroy the fuel and energy sector of the country,” Oleshchuk said.
In a post on X, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged the provision of “additional ‘Patriot’ and other modern air defense systems for Ukraine,” as well as accelerating the delivery of F-16 fighter jets.
The Ukrainian leader will speak in Singapore on Sunday at the Shangri-La Dialogue, a major regional defense forum.
Among the targets under attack were energy facilities in the Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine’s south, Ivano-Frankivsk in the west, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyrovohrad in the center, and the Ukraine-controlled part of the Donetsk region in the east, Energy Minister German Galushchenko said on Facebook.
Russian missiles struck areas near two hydroelectric power plants, causing critical damage to equipment, Ukrhydroenergo, the state-run electric production company, said on Telegram without naming the sites.
DTEK, Ukraine’s largest power producer, said the barrage seriously damaged the equipment of two of its thermal electric power plants, also without specifying their location.
It was the sixth massive attack targeting the company’s power facilities over the past two and a half months, DTEK said on Telegram.
The Russian defense ministry said in a statement that the overnight attacks were made in response to Ukraine’s ongoing efforts “to damage Russian energy and transportation facilities.”
Besides energy facilities that “support the operation of enterprises of the military-industrial complex,” storage sites for Western weapons were hit, the ministry said.
A fire erupted at a critical infrastructure object in the Ivano-Frankivsk region after the strike, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said on Telegram. Zaporizhzhia governor Ivan Fedorov confirmed in a Telegram post that an energy facility in his region was attacked, without naming it. Separately, Fedorov said the passage of cars across the dam at the Dnipro hydroelectric power plant was temporarily suspended.
At least 19 people were injured in the overnight strikes. That includes 13 wounded, including eight children, when an Iskander-K missile hit a residential area in Balakliya, 40 miles southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s National Police said on Telegram.
Russia resumed massive attacks on Ukraine’s power network last month, targeting energy facilities across the country.
President Vladimir Putin’s forces have also stepped up their assaults along the 746-mile front line as Kyiv’s Western allies — including U.S. and Germany — become more open to allow hitting some targets inside Russia.
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