Russia launched a massive airstrike across Ukraine overnight, targeting infrastructure in multiple regions and resulting in the deaths of at least 4 civilians, including a 10-year-old girl in Odessa and a 14-year-old girl in Kharkiv, where two women aged 43 and 59 were also killed.
Attacks have damaged energy facilities in the Kharkiv, Kiev, Zaporizhzhia and Lviv regions. Engineers are working to restore the damaged sites, Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said via Facebook. The Air Force issued an airborne warning for most of the country, including regions in the far west, in the early hours of this morning. The military announced that Russia had launched drones, cruise missiles from Tu-95 bombers and Kinzhal hypersonic missiles towards various regions.
They have been reported explosions in the city of Kharkiv around 5 a.m. local time. According to oblast governor Oleh Syniehubov, the region has been hit at least 10 times, with damage to infrastructure. Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov told residents to expect power outages, announcing that the subway would be out of service for several hours. According to Oleksii Kuleba, deputy head of the presidential office, more than 200,000 subscribers in Kharkiv Oblast were left without electricity after the attack and the subway is being used as a shelter. No casualties were reported.
Russian forces attacked the oblast of Kiev with drones overnight, targeting the region for over five hours. According to Governor Ruslan Kravchenko, the drone attacks caused a fire in an infrastructure in Kiev Oblast, adding that emergency services were working at the scene and that no casualties had been reported. Russian attacks also in the western regions of Ukraine. The governor ofLviv oblast Maksym Kozytskyi reported that a Russian missile entered the region’s airspace shortly before 6 a.m. local time. Air defense systems were active in the area.
Residents reported explosions nell’oblast di Ivano-Frankivsk around 6.30 am local time. Poland announced it had scrambled military planes to defend Polish airspace during the mass attack. They have been reported explosions also in Zaporizhzhia oblast. Russian missiles damaged energy infrastructure in the region, Governor Ivan Fedorov said. The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that Ukrainian defenses shot down 37 of 40 Shahed-type drones launched by Russia overnight.
Long-standing soldier demobilization plan cancelled
With the Ukrainian army outnumbered by Russia on the battlefield, “the offensive continues along the entire front line. And currently it is impossible to weaken the defense forces,” Dmytro Lazutkin, spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, announced yesterday on state television, sparking the soldiers’ anger for having deleted a clause in a bill that would have given those who spent long periods fighting on the front lines for the chance to return home.
“We cannot make hasty decisions now,” he added, explaining the military’s opposition to the measure. Military leaders have been pressuring politicians to abandon a bill, passed at first reading in February, that would have given soldiers serving more than 36 months the option of being discharged. The bill was approved at first reading in parliament in February. But that clause was removed yesterday, before the second reading, after an appeal by the army chief and defense minister.