All regions of Ukraine were under air raid alerts early Thursday amid Russia’s latest long-range drone and missile barrage against the country’s energy grid, with almost 1 million people reportedly left without power.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched around 100 drones and more than 90 missiles into Ukraine, including projectiles carrying cluster munitions. “Each such attack proves that air defense systems are needed now in Ukraine, where they save lives, and not in storage bases,” he added.
“This is especially important in the winter, when we have to protect our infrastructure from targeted Russian strikes,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 91 missiles, 79 of which it said were shot down. Russia also launched 97 drones, the air force said, of which 35 were downed and 62 neutralized via jamming.
Russian President Vladimir Putin lauded Moscow’s missile capabilities immediately after the barrage.
“The Russian hypersonic systems have no analogues in the world, their production is increasing,” he said during at a session of the CSTO’s Collective Security Council on Thursday in Astana, Kazakhstan.
“The Russian Federation produces 10 times more missiles than all NATO countries combined, and will increase production by a quarter,” Putin said.
Energy Minister German Galushchenko wrote in a post to Facebook that the country’s energy network faced “a massive blow,” with strikes on infrastructure “throughout Ukraine.”