Russia launches biggest aerial strike on Ukraine of the war so far
Russia has launched its biggest aerial assault on Ukraine since the start of the war, part of a dramatic escalation in civilian strikes over recent weeks intended to wear down the country's air defences and break public morale.
Air raid sirens rang out on Saturday night and into the early hours of Sunday as more than 500 drones, missiles and glide bombs were launched at cities across the nation.
Of those 475 were either shot down or lost, probably after being electronically jammed, Ukraine's air force said.
Almost 90 per cent of the weapons fired were Shahed drones — originally designed and produced by by Iran — after Moscow ramped up production this year. Russia also launched seven Iskander ballistic missiles and four hypersonic Kinzhal missiles.
Many of the areas targeted were hundreds of miles from the front lines and included the western Ukrainian regions of Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil. Cherkasy, Poltava and Kremenchuk, in central Ukraine, and Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia, in the south, were also hit.
The attack killed one person, injured seven people, including a child, and damaged homes and infrastructure, the authorities said.
A Ukrainian fighter pilot died 'like a hero' while repelling the attack, the air force said. Having been struck while shooting down aerial targets, Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Ustymenko managed to steer his F-16 jet away from crashing into a settlement but was not able to eject in time. Ustymenko, 31, had a four-year-old son.
'The pilot used all of his onboard weapons and shot down seven air targets. While shooting down the last one, his aircraft was damaged and began to lose altitude,' the air force said in a statement.
President Zelensky also paid tribute to Ustymenko while reiterating his country's desperate need for American-made Patriot air defence systems.
President Trump said during a Nato summit in the Hague on Wednesday that he was considering sending additional Patriots to Ukraine, though it was unclear whether he meant donating the defence systems to Ukraine — as his predecessor President Biden did — or selling them. Zelensky has said that Ukraine is willing to buy more missile batteries.
'We need protection: from ballistic missiles, from drones, from terror,' the Ukrainian leader said on Sunday. 'Ukraine needs to strengthen its air defence. That is the best protection for the lives of our people. We are ready to buy these American systems.'
Russia has intensified its bombing campaign against Ukraine over the past two months.
Last summer, between 10 and 30 Shaheds would target Ukraine on an average night. This summer, Russia has on several occasions launched more than 300 in a single night. Speaking in the Hague this week, Zelensky said that of all the Shahed drones fired since the 2022 invasion, 10 per cent were launched this month.
• How Putin's new drone war is getting deadlier
Having previously imported the drones from Iran, Russia began producing them domestically in 2023 at a factory in Tatarstan. Since then, production has grown significantly to just under 200 drones a day, according to Ukrainian military intelligence, which believes that Russia plans to increase the rate to 500 a day.
Many of those launched do not carry a warhead and are decoys designed to overwhelm anti-aircraft gunners, enabling others to get through.
On Friday President Putin said he was prepared for Russia to enter into a third round of peace talks with Ukraine.
Rustem Umerov, Ukraine's defence minister, said that Ukrainian officials were working to organise a direct meeting between Zelensky and Putin during the next round of negotiations, a proposition that the Russian president has so far balked at.
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