Kiev said on Tuesday that Russia launched a record 188 drones over Ukraine overnight, amid rising international tensions after Russia fired a nuclear-capable missile that reached European cities.
The Kremlin declined on Tuesday to confirm that Ukrainian forces had again launched US-provided long-range ATACMS into Russia this week, but still blamed Washington for escalating the conflict.
Moscow and Kiev are increasing their drone and missile deployments, Ukraine recently fired US long-range missiles at Russia and the Kremlin retaliated with an experimental hypersonic missile.
The uproar came as Ukraine’s ambassador and 32 NATO members were to meet in Brussels over Russia’s firing of a medium-range missile on the city of Dnipro last week.
“During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of martyred unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified drones,” the Air Force said on Tuesday. Referring to Iranian-designed drones and bringing the total number fired down to 188.
The Air Force said it shot down 76 Russian drones in 17 areas, while another 95 were either lost to their radar or downed by electronic jamming defensive systems. It did not specify what happened to the remainder.
Moscow also fired four Iskander-M ballistic missiles, the air force said.
“Unfortunately, critical infrastructure was affected, with private and apartment buildings damaged in many areas,” it said in a statement.
explosion in Kyiv
AFP journalists heard explosions in the capital, while Kiev city officials said an air alert had lasted five hours and 10 Russian drones were shot down there.
In the western Ternopil region, one of the areas spared from the worst fighting, officials said drones had damaged “critical infrastructure facilities,” without elaborating.
However he said the attack had disrupted power in the city of Ternopil and surrounding towns and engineers were working to stabilize the supply.
Putin said last week the new missile attack was in response to Ukraine’s firing of weapons supplied to Russia by the United States and Britain.
The Kremlin leader warned that Moscow feels it has the right to attack military facilities in countries that allow Ukraine to use its weapons against Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week called the attack “the latest bout of Russian madness” and appealed for updated air-defense systems to deal with the new threat.
Kiev says it expects “concrete and meaningful results” after convening a NATO-Ukraine council meeting.
But NATO diplomats and officials have tempered expectations of any major outcome from consultations scheduled for Tuesday afternoon at the alliance’s Brussels headquarters.
What is most expected is a reiteration of NATO’s earlier insistence that Moscow’s deployment of new weapons “will not prevent NATO allies from supporting Ukraine”.
Russian army advanced
“The meeting provides an opportunity to discuss the current security situation in Ukraine and will include a briefing of Ukrainian officials via video link,” a NATO official said.
The Kremlin rejected the meeting, saying it was unlikely to take any significant decisions.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s exhausted soldiers are struggling to stop the advance of Russian forces in the country’s east.
Russia said on Tuesday its troops had captured another village in the Kharkiv region, where the front line was relatively stable until recently.
The Defense Ministry said its units had “liberated” the settlement of Kopanki, a village near the Ukrainian-held city of Kupyansk, which was previously captured by Russian forces at the start of the 2022 offensive and that year. It was again annexed by Ukraine at the end of the 1950s. ,
Moscow also confirmed on Tuesday that it had detained a British man fighting for Ukraine in Russia’s western Kursk region over Kiev’s offensive.
A court in the region said it had ordered the detention of James Scott Rice Anderson on Monday on charges that he “took part in armed hostilities on the territory of the Kursk region”.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
