Kyiv (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Russia carried out an overnight drone strike on the Ukrainian port of Mykolaiv, which supplies the country with access to the Black Sea, and hit Kryvyi Rih in what Ukrainian officials said was the war’s largest drone attack on the city.
A day earlier, the United States signed separate agreements with Ukraine and Russia to halt their attacks over the Black Sea and against each other’s energy installation, but it was not clear when and how the arrangements would come into force.
The mayor of Mykolaiv stated there were emergency power failures in the city, following a report by the region’s governor that seven drones were downed overnight over the area.
Russia also struck the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, torching fires and hurting buildings but causing no casualties, the director of the city’s military administration said.
The Ukrainian military stated its air defence units had downed 56 of 117 drones fired by Russia in the overnight attack. It stated that 48 drones were lost, as a result of the Ukrainian military’s redirecting them with electronic warfare.
“Apparently, this is how the occupiers ‘want peace’,”
Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the military administration, noted, describing it as the war’s biggest drone attack on the city.
“Most importantly, there were no deaths or injuries.”
When was the last time Russia struck on Mykolaive port?
Earlier, in November 2024, facilities in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv and northeastern Sumy regions were damaged during Russia’s overnight drone raids on the war-torn country, Ukrainian authorities stated. Mykolaiv Governor Vitaliy Kim stated that Russia’s drone strike hit energy infrastructure in the region, resulting in blackouts in several areas, but no casualties were reported.
According to the Sumy Regional Military Administration, the Russian attack on the region caused a fire at a two-story building near Znob-Novhorodske, about 5 kilometres south of Ukraine’s border with Russia.
A separate Ukrainian Air Force report claimed that 22 of 56 Russian drones were shot down over Sumy, Poltava, Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv, Cherkasy, Odesa, Ternopil, and the surrounding region of the capital.
“Five UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) strikes were recorded on infrastructure facilities in the frontline areas”,
The statement said, adding that two Russian drones left Ukraine’s airspace for neighbouring Belarus.
