Between Thursday evening and Friday morning, Russia carried out a series of new attacks against several cities and areas of Ukraine. The attacks, which used missiles and drones, mostly hit Donbass and the Zaporizhzhia region, but there were also explosions in the capital Kiev and Kharkiv, both located in the northern part of the country. According to the Ukrainian military, Russia has launched 71 cruise missiles, 35 S-300 missiles and 7 Iranian-made drones: it says it has intercepted and shot down 61 cruise missiles and five drones.
The attacks mainly hit Ukrainian energy infrastructures, in line with the strategy adopted by Russia for months now, which also in this case caused power outages in several parts of the country. The missiles and drones were launched partly from bombers, partly from Russian warships in the Black Sea and partly from Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine to the northeast. Valery Zaluzhny, the Ukrainian army chief of staff, said two cruise missiles fired from Russian ships on the Black Sea would have crossed the airspace of Moldova and Romania, a claim which was also confirmed by Moldova.
