Russian missile and drone strikes on Kyiv and the surrounding region overnight into yesterday killed 17 people and wounded 44, smashing businesses and a train station, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.
The targets hit included a brewing company, a warehouse for construction material and a mail sorting office that had nothing to do with the war, Zelenskiy said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said that the businesses masked ties to the military.
Photo: AFP
The nighttime attack lasting about two hours was the latest in a series of large-scale Russian ballistic missile strikes that have become near-routine this summer.
The intensified barrages are exploiting Ukraine’s critical shortage of interceptor missiles for the US-made Patriot systems, the sole air defense weapon in its arsenal able to shoot down ballistic missiles.
Zelenskiy has pleaded with other countries to send more of the ammunition made scarcer by the Iran war.
Supplies of air defense missiles to Ukraine during the first half of this year dropped to one-third of the level last year, Zelenskiy said.
“Ballistic interceptors are what could have saved the lives of those killed today,” he said on social media. “It is very important for our partners to understand that delays in supplying them, or a reluctance to hand over anti-ballistic systems, lead directly to such horrific casualties and destruction.”
Ukraine has stepped up its deep strikes on key Russian targets such as oil refineries in an effort to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate.
In its latest attack on logistics facilities of Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, Ukrainian drones hit a warehouse in the Tula region south of Moscow, the company and the region’s governor said yesterday.
It was the 14th Wildberries warehouse to catch fire in less than three weeks, according to a Ukrainian tally.
In Moscow later yesterday, Putin named Denis Lyamin to head Russia’s Unmanned Systems Forces, a newly established branch of the military responsible for drone warfare.
Putin announced the appointment as part of what he called “refinement” of the military structure.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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