Russian attacks on Ukraine have killed 15 people and injured 156 overnight as Vladimir Putin’s forces drastically stepped up their long-range drone strikes on the country using Iranian-made weapons.
A nine-story apartment building in Kyiv was completely demolished in the deadliest attack on Ukraine’s capital this year, with more than 440 drones and 32 missiles fired on Monday night, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The Kyiv attack was “one of the most terrifying strikes” on the city since the start of the war more than three years ago, President Zelensky said.
Ukraine’s capital was bombarded with Russian attacks for more than eight hours, with many civilian targets struck, Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said.
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Wednesday has been declared an official day of mourning in the city, Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced.
It comes a week after Russia launched its biggest overnight drone bombardment on Ukraine since the start of the war, with almost 500 drones deployed.
Deadly deal
In the early days of the war, Russia relied on Iranian-made Shahed attack drones for its strikes on Ukraine.
But in November 2022, Moscow and Tehran signed an agreement to purchase and produce the drones in Russia, so that it was less reliant on Iranian imports.
Russia paid Iran an estimated $1.75 billion for the Shahed technology, equipment, and source code, along with 6,000 drones, according to a recent report by C4ADS, a nonprofit organization researching worldwide illicit networks.
“It provides a pretty cheap, mass-produced platform that has extremely long range,” Omar Al-Ghusbi, a senior analyst with C4ADS, told the Wall Street Journal.
“The Iranians had a weapon system that fit perfectly for what the Russians needed,” he added.
By September last year, two years after the Shahed deal, Russia had launched 8,060 Shahed and similar attack drones, according to C4ADS.
Russia has launched nearly 20,500 attack and decoy drones this year alone, according to a statistical analysis by the Center for Information Resilience (CIR), a UK-based open-source investigations organization.
Between January 2023 and Tuesday, a total of 34,454 drones were launched, according to numbers tallied by the CIR.
“The massive increase in total drone launches is almost trying to saturate Ukrainian air defenses. And that means a higher chance of them actually hitting the target,” Kyle Glen, an investigator with the CIR, told the WSJ.
With Post wires
