Kyiv: Ukrainian air defences downed 32 of 35 Shahed exploding drones launched by Russia early Tuesday, most of them in the Kyiv region, officials said, in a bombardment that exposed gaps in the country's air protection after almost 16 months of war.
Russian forces mostly targeted the region around the Ukrainian capital in a nighttime drone attack lasting around three hours, officials said, but Ukrainian air defences in the area shot down about two dozen of them. The attack was part of a wider bombardment of Ukrainian regions that extended as far as the Lviv region in the west of the country, near Poland.
The Shahed drones made it all the way to Lviv because of the inability of air defense assets to cover such a broad area, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said. Air defence systems are mostly dedicated to protecting major cities, key infrastructure facilities, including nuclear power plants, and the front line, he said.
There is a general lack of air defense assets to cover a country like Ukraine with a dome like Israel has, he said, in a reference to Israel's Iron Dome aerial defence system. In the Lviv region, the Russian strike hit a critical infrastructure facility, starting a fire, according to Lviv Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi.
Russia also struck the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine with ballistic missiles. Ukraine's air defences have been reinforced with sophisticated weapons from its Western allies, allowing it a higher success rate recently against incoming drones and missiles.
Previously, a winter bombardment by Russia damaged Ukraine's power supply, though speedy repairs blunted that Kremlin effort. The latest aerial assaults behind Ukraine's front line coincided with the early stages of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, as it aims to dislodge the Kremlin's forces from territory occupied since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. (With Agency Input)
