Russia launches another wave of missiles and drones at Ukraine

Russia has launched waves of missile and drone attacks targeting several Ukrainian regions killing at least four people, according to Ukraine’s military, a day after it carried out a “massive” attack on Ukraine’s power grid.

Two people were killed when a hotel was “wiped out” in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, regional officials said on Tuesday. Two more people died in drone attacks on the city of Zaporizhzhia, east of Kryvyi Rih.

The Kyiv region’s air defence systems were deployed several times overnight to repel missiles and drones targeting Kyiv, the regional military administration said on the Telegram messaging app.

Ukrainian air defences shot down about 15 drones and several missiles near the Ukrainian capital during Russia’s overnight attack, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on Tuesday morning.

“Everything that flew to the capital of Ukraine was destroyed,” he said on Telegram.

Ukraine shot down five missiles and 60 drones launched by Russia during the overnight attack, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Tuesday.

Russia launched a total of 91 projectiles, including 10 missiles and 81 Iranian-designed attack drones, from several regions, it said in a social media post.

On Monday, Russia launched more than 200 missiles and drones, killing at least seven people and damaging energy infrastructure. US President Joe Biden condemned the attack as “outrageous”.

“I condemn, in the strongest possible terms, Russia’s continued war against Ukraine and its efforts to plunge the Ukrainian people into darkness,” he said in a statement.

“Let me be clear: Russia will never succeed in Ukraine, and the spirit of the Ukrainian people will never be broken.”

Residents in Kyiv rushed to take shelter in metro stations through Monday as blasts, which appeared to be air defences, were heard.

“We are always worried. We have been under stress for almost three years now,” said Yulia Voloshyna, a 34-year-old lawyer taking refuge in the Kyiv metro.

“It was very scary, to be honest. You don’t know what to expect,” she told the AFP news agency.

The magnitude of the attacks on Tuesday and their full effect were not immediately known or confirmed, but Ukraine’s air force said it recorded the launch of several clusters of drones and the takeoff from Russian airfields of Tu-85 strategic bombers and MiG-31 supersonic interceptor aircraft.

‘Act of retaliation’

Several Russian military bloggers, such as the pro-war collective under the name of Rybar, called the attacks an “act of retaliation” for Ukraine’s surprising incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.

The Kremlin said on Monday there would be a response to Ukraine’s action in Kursk, but three weeks into the incursion, Kyiv has claimed further advances. While Russia says it keeps pummelling Ukrainian troops there, it has been unable to push them out.

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Alex Gatopoulos called Monday’s strikes “the worst aerial assault Ukraine has had to endure in months, focusing on smashing its power and water grids. In its third year of war, these long-range Russian attacks show no sign of ending any time soon.”

The Kremlin denies targeting civilians in the war that President Vladimir Putin launched against Russia’s smaller neighbour with a full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its strikes on Monday hit “all designated targets” in Ukraine’s critical energy infrastructure.

Kryvyi Rih, Kyiv and central and eastern regions of Ukraine were under air raid alerts for most of the time overnight.

Two civilians may still be under the rubble of the hotel in Kryvyi Rih and five were injured in the attack, Serhiy Lisak, the 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 there, he added.

In Zaporizhzhia, two people were killed and four injured overnight, Ivan Fedorov, governor of the Zaporizhia region, said on Telegram.

“Such are the consequences of the overnight attack by Shaheds on Zaporizhia,” Fedorov said, referring to the Iranian-made kamikaze drones that Ukraine says Russia uses in its attacks.