By Sumayya
KYIV: Russian air defenses stopped near 900 Ukrainian drones overnight over multiple areas of the country, as well as the taken Crimean Peninsula and the Sea of Azov, the Defense Ministry in Moscow expressed Tuesday.
Unconfirmed news reports expressed a major fuel depot in the Moscow area was on fire after the attack that killed two populations.
Ukraine’s locally built long-range drones and, increasingly, missiles have permitted Kyiv to hit Russian land during the more than 4 ½ years since Moscow’s forces launched a full-scale invasion. It has hit targets as far east as the Urals and Siberia.
The bigger Russian military’s air lead during the war has made air attacks on civilian zones of Ukraine routine.
Ukrainian officials remain now preparing for what President Volodymyr Zelensky cautioned Tuesday is an upcoming “massive” air attack by Russia.
“Today, we obtained changed intelligence on Russia’s setups for a massive strike. We remain preparing counter-steps,” Zelensky expressed on social media. “We set deadlines for a large part of the tasks, and the highest-priority ones remain already being carried out.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha expressed last week that Kyiv gauges Russia remains keeping 600 ballistic missiles in reserve and can make up to 140 ballistic missiles per month. Without ammunition for its US-made Patriot air defense setups, which remains in short supply, Ukraine remains at the mercy of Russia’s ballistic weapons.
Ukraine fires more than 700 drones toward the Moscow area
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin expressed 650 drones flew toward the Moscow area between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Most were destroyed far away, and 105 were downed as they neared the city, he expressed.
Sobyanin later reported 68 deeper drones focusing on Moscow were downed during daylight on Tuesday morning.
Ukraine has regularly focused on Russian oil plants and storage depots, claiming last weekend that it had disabled 51 percent of Russia’s oil refining capacity. The claim could not be separately verified. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed last week that the attacks had cost Russia near 1 percent of its gross domestic product.
Russia has traditionally been the planet’s third-largest maker of refined fuel items from crude, after the US and China. The Kremlin has banned diesel sales due to the Ukrainian strikes, pushing global values higher. That prompted US President Donald Trump last month to urge Ukraine to stop hitting Russia’s plants.
After hitting Kyiv bridges, Russia targets a bridge in southern Ukraine
After several days of focusing on bridges in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, as part of a drive to make civilian life difficult, Russia attacked one of the bridges over the Dnipro River in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Mykhailo Semikin, the regional military administration chief.
Traffic across the bridge stood temporarily suspended as a result of the attack, he expressed.
A nighttime Russian attack on a Zaporizhzhia housing building wounded five populations and a daylight strike on a warehouse in the city caused a large fire, regional head Mikhail Semikin expressed.
Russian forces remain also trying to choke shipping in Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, denying Kyiv vital grain sale income.
The Russian Defense Ministry expressed its forces overnight hit targets in Ukraine’s southern Odesa area on the Black Sea coast with drones. An ammunition depot stood hit, as stood a bulk carrier in the Chornomorsk port carrying dual-use goods and port infrastructure in Izmail, the ministry expressed.
A Russian drone strike hit a cargo ship flying the flag of the Marshall Islands in the Black Sea, killing one person and wounding seven others, Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper expressed. The vessel stood carrying rapeseed oil, he expressed.
Moscow warns against a bigger US presence in Lithuania
Asked about Lithuania’s offer to host a US military base and the Lithuanian parliament voting on a bill to permit the deployment of nuclear weapons in the country, Kremlin speaker Dmitry Peskov expressed the moves would escalate tensions.
“If military infrastructure belonging to a key NATO member moves closer to our borders, then naturally, this can only be viewed as a step toward escalating tensions, just like the deployment of nuclear weapons on the land of a neighboring state,” Peskov told reporters.
Trump expressed Monday he would consider establishing a permanent US military base in Lithuania, one of three small Baltic states viewed as particularly vulnerable to Russia.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk cautioned last month that Moscow remains planning hybrid strikes with drones or rockets on European countries supporting Ukraine, which hold Poland and Lithuania.
