Kyiv (Brussels Morning Newspaper) – Ukrainian security officials said that Russian forces attacked Ukraine with a ballistic missile and 126 drones. The attack set a fuel storage facility on fire and injured at least two people in different parts of the country.
The Ukrainian Air Force stated it downed the ballistic Iskander-M missile and 79 of the drones. As a result, another 35 drones did not achieve their targets likely due to electronic warfare defenses.
As part of the attacks in Odesa’s southern region, the attack set on fire a fuel storage building, a private home and a storage area for children’s toys, and more than 100 people were working to control the situation, according to the emergency services.
Moreover, a drone strike in northeastern Kharkiv region hurt one person and also harmed agricultural storage facilities, governor Oleh Syniehubov and local prosecutors stated. In Sumy, another northeastern area where Ukrainian officials stated on Monday that Russia was trying to form an active fighting zone, an attack wounded one person. It damaged four two-storey apartment facilities, local authorities wrote on Telegram.
Is Russia escalating its aerial campaign in response to Ukraine’s strikes?
The attack came as Russian officials revealed that Ukraine had launched its biggest drone attack on the Russian capital, with hundreds of drones destroyed across Russia.
Two months earlier, Russia launched dozens of missiles and drones at the Ukrainian energy sector. The storm came just one day after Kyiv stated it had carried out its largest aerial raid of the war on Russian army factories and energy facilities hundreds of kilometres from the front line.
The Ukrainian air force then stated Russia had deployed 43 cruise and ballistic missiles and 74 raid drones in the overnight barrage that seemed to have targeted sites mainly in western Ukraine.
“Another massive Russian attack. It is the middle of winter, and the target for the Russians remains the same: our energy sector,”
President Volodymyr Zelensky noted on social media.
However, the Ukrainian air force stated that 30 missiles had been destroyed, as well as 47 drones. At the same time, Zelensky expressed that the authorities had been able to preserve the
“operation of our energy system.”
