Kiev launched one of the biggest drone strikes on Russia since the start of a full-scale war, targeting power plants and an oil refinery overnight as Moscow’s forces made fresh advances toward a key city in eastern Ukraine, officials said on Sunday (1).
Ukraine also reported Russian shelling in areas close to the shared border. A missile attack on a grain convoy killed a truck driver, while another in Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv in the northeast wounded at least 28, it said.
The fighting comes at a critical moment in the two-and-a-half-year conflict, with Russia pressing an offensive in eastern Ukraine as it tries to drive out Ukrainian forces that crossed its western border in a surprise incursion on August 6.
Last week, Russia hit Ukraine with its heaviest airstrikes of the war, hitting energy facilities, part of a campaign of drone and missile bombings that have killed thousands of civilians and soldiers since the conflict began in February 2022.
Ukraine, with a rapidly expanding domestic drone industry, has stepped up its own attacks on Russia’s energy, military and transport infrastructure.
The country is also pressing the United States and other allies for permission to use more powerful Western-supplied weapons to inflict greater damage inside Russia and undermine Moscow’s ability to strike Ukraine.
Russian officials said air defense units destroyed 158 drones launched by Ukraine overnight, and that debris caused fires at the Moscow Oil Refinery and the Konakovo Power Plant in the neighboring Tver region.
Temporary restrictions imposed on Moscow’s Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports overnight were lifted on Sunday morning, aviation regulator Rosaviatsia said.
Reuters has not been able to independently verify reports of drone strikes against Russia or from the battlefield in Ukraine, and Kiev has not yet commented. Russia rarely discloses the full extent of the damage inflicted by Ukraine’s airstrikes.
RUSSIA ADVANCES IN DONETSK
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that in the past week alone Russia has used 160 missiles, 780 guided aerial bombs and 400 attack drones against cities and troops across Ukraine, and he has again asked for permission to use Western-supplied weapons to strike deep into Russia.
“To provide full defense and protect our cities from this aggression, more support is needed for a fair Ukrainian response,” he said on Telegram on Sunday.
Zelenskiy called for “a decision on long-range strikes on Russian missile launch sites, destruction of Russian military logistics, joint shooting down of missiles and drones.”
Senior Ukrainian officials were in Washington last week to press their demand. Kiev’s allies are wary of how Russian President Vladimir Putin would respond if his weapons were used against targets deep inside Russian territory.
The appeals come as Russia accelerates its advances towards the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, which is a vital military hub and transport link to cities further north.
Ukraine had hoped that its surprise incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, launched last month, would force Russia to redeploy troops and ease pressure on besieged forces in the east, but so far that does not appear to have had the desired effect.
Russia’s defense ministry said Sunday its forces had captured two more settlements in the Donetsk region, including Ptyche, just 21 km (13 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk, and were “continuing to advance deep into enemy defenses.” Russian forces also captured the settlement of Vyimka, it said.
Ukraine’s top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi said the situation was “difficult” around Russia’s main line of attack in eastern Ukraine, but that all necessary decisions were being taken.
In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said 28 people were injured in a Russian airstrike. Regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov said they included a six-year-old child and two doctors.
(Additional reporting by Lucy Papachristou and Mark Trevelyan)
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