A Ukrainian military spokesman said that an unprecedented number of weapons was used in the barrage
The Ukrainian Air Force, which is responsible for the nation’s air defenses, said it faced a massive Russian barrage overnight on Thursday night and Friday morning. Officials throughout the country have reported damage at multiple sites.
The alleged air raid, which has yet to be confirmed by the Russian military, reportedly involved dozens of drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. Igor Ignat, spokesman for Kiev’s military, told the media that “we have never seen so many targets on our monitors simultaneously.”
Earlier in the week, Kiev celebrated what it hailed as a major success in the conflict, after a Russian warship in the Crimean port city of Feodosia was damaged by air-launched cruise missiles.
Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a metro station was damaged, as well as warehouses in two separate districts of the Ukrainian capital. His office said a business center was also set on fire.
Sergey Lisak, who heads the Dnepropetrovsk Region, reported that a shopping mall was hit in the city of Dnepr, the region’s capital. Oleg Sinegub, his counterpart from Kharkov Region, said “civilian infrastructure” was damaged, including warehouses and a medical facility.
Prime Minister Denis Shmygal reported there had been issues with the power supply in the city of Kharkov – which city Mayor Igor Terekhov confirmed – and damage in Lviv, Sumy, Odessa, and Zaporozhye Regions. The minister claimed that “most of the air targets were intercepted” by Ukrainian forces.
Ignat, the military spokesman, claimed on national television that Russia used “everything” in its arsenal from kamikaze drones to hypersonic air-launched Kinzhal missiles.
Moscow previously stated that Kiev tends to exaggerate the number of Kinzhal missiles used by Russia in the conflict in order to claim that it intercepted those projectiles.
