Ukraine’s air defence systems were activated early on Tuesday to repel a further Russian drone attack, the military administration of the Kyiv region said. It comes after Russia fired hundreds of drones and missiles at Ukraine on Monday, killing at least seven people and battering the already weakened energy grid.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, responded to Monday’s attack with a familiar call to western allies to provide more by way of air defence support and lift restrictions on using western weapons to strike deep into Russian territory, write Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer. “We could do much more to protect lives if the aviation of our European neighbours worked together with our F-16s and together with our air defence,” he said.
“Ukraine cannot be constrained in its long-range capabilities when the terrorists face no such limitations,” Zelenskiy said, adding: “America, Britain, France, and our other partners have the power to help us stop this terror. The time for decisive action is now.” Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, said the attack showed that Kyiv needed permission to strike “deep into the territory of Russia with western weapons”.
The commander of the Ukrainian air force, Mykola Oleshchuk, said Russia launched 127 missiles at Ukraine on Monday, of which 102 were intercepted. He added that Russian forces had also launched 109 drones. The prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said 15 regions had sustained damage during the strikes, and Zelenskiy said the energy sector had suffered “a lot of damage”.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said a hydropower plant in the Kyiv region had been targeted. A video posted on social media and verified by Reuters showed a damaged dam and a fire after an apparent strike at a plant. A separate clip, also verified, showed a missile hitting a water reservoir. Targeting hydroelectric dams and reservoirs is a war crime under the Geneva conventions, even if a military objective is behind the attack. The Russian defence ministry confirmed it hit energy facilities in a statement, claiming that they were being used to aid Ukraine’s “military-production complex” and that “all designated targets were hit”.
Joe Biden denounced the attack on Ukraine 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,” said the US president.
Among the casualties of the Russian barrage, at least one person died and five could still be under the rubble after a missile struck a civilian infrastructure building in the city of Kryvyi Rih, central Ukraine, regional officials said. Four people were hospitalised. Serhiy Lisak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region where Kryvyi Rih is located, said the building was “wiped out”.
Nato member Poland said it was searching for a Russian drone after its airspace was violated. What was “probably an unmanned aerial vehicle” came around 30km (18 miles) into Polish territory during the barrage against Ukraine. “The object was confirmed by at least three radiolocation stations,” said Gen Maciej Klisz, operational commander of the armed forces. Army command spokesman Jacek Goryszewski said “it is highly likely that it could have been a Shahed-type drone” of Iranian design, used by the Russian army. “But this has to be verified,” he said, adding that it might have flown back out of Polish territory.
Russia said on Monday it had struck Ukrainian forces at more than a dozen places along the front in the Kursk region of western Russia. Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday that his forces had advanced up to three kilometres (1.86 miles) in Kursk, taking control of two more settlements.
In Ukraine’s Donbas region, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the military would “further strengthen” the direction of the eastern strategic hub of Pokrovsk which Russian forces are throwing everything into capturing. Zelenskiy said he was briefed by his army chief on the situation there.
One person died and six others were injured in a fire at an oil refinery in the Siberian city of Omsk on Monday, said the regional governor, Vitaly Khotsenko. Authorities did not specify the source of the fire. Russian media reported that loud explosions were heard near the refinery, operated by Gazprom and about 2,300km from Ukraine. Ukraine regularly carries out drone attacks on oil and gas infrastructure in Russia, sometimes far from its border.
Russia stayed away as Switzerland hosted UN security council members in Geneva on Monday to commemorate the Geneva conventions, signed 75 years ago after the second world war to limit the barbarity of war. Russia was the only security council member absent – its UN envoy in New York called the meeting a “waste of time”.
Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, a journalist for Reuters, remained in a critical condition after a missile strike on a hotel in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, the news agency said on Monday. Lyubysh-Kirdey was part of a team of six from Reuters covering the war staying at the Hotel Sapphire when it was hit on Saturday. Ryan Evans, a safety adviser for the agency, was killed. One other Reuters journalist, Daniel Peleschuk, was injured while the other three team members were accounted for, according to the agency.