Russia attacked Ukraine with 10 missiles and 81 drones Tuesday, in a second consecutive day of widespread aerial attacks as Ukrainian officials urge allies to give Ukraine’s military the ability to strike sites Russia uses to launch the assaults.
Ukraine’s air force said the country’s air defenses shot down five of the missiles and 60 of the drones, while 10 more drones likely crashed in Ukrainian territory.
The intercepts took place all over Ukraine, including in the Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, Kirovohrad, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Poltava, Rivne, Sumy, Vinnytsia, Zaporizhzhia and Zhytomyr regions.
The governor of Kharkiv reported a missile strike on an infrastructure facility that injured four people. The governor of Khmelnytskyi said one person was hurt in the attacks, which also caused fires at two houses.
There were no reports of major damage.
Russia’s defense ministry said Tuesday it shot down three Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region and two drones over the Kursk region.
Russian attacks Monday involved about 200 drones and missiles, which killed at least four people and knocked out power in several Ukrainian cities.
It was Russia’s most intense aerial attack in weeks, and came 20 days after Ukraine surprised Moscow with a cross-border incursion into Russia’s southern Kursk region.
U.S. President Joe Biden condemned Russia’s Monday assault, calling it an attempt to “plunge the Ukrainian people into darkness.”
Biden, in a statement, reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine’s military and highlighted efforts to bolster Ukrainian air defenses and help repair Ukraine’s energy grid.
“Let me be clear: Russia will never succeed in Ukraine, and the spirit of the Ukrainian people will never be broken,” Biden said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated his calls for more long-range attack capabilities for his forces, saying that is necessary to target the areas in Russian border regions that Russian forces are using to launch missiles and drones at Ukraine.
“This is the optimal anti-terrorist tactic that every one of our partners, from whom we expect decisions regarding our long-range capabilities, would rightfully employ and certainly use to protect themselves,” Zelenskyy said late Monday.
Russia’s defense ministry said Monday its forces used high-precision weapons to strike important energy infrastructure in Ukraine that it said supported the military-industrial complex. It listed power substations, gas compressor stations and storage sites for aircraft weapons.
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
