Russia launched a large-scale missile and drone attack across Ukraine overnight, the second such attack this month, as kyiv's top military commander He said the advance of Kremlin forces had largely stalled on the front line.
Ukrainian air defenses shot down five of the six missiles and 24 explosive-laden Shahed drones over its central, southern and eastern regions, the country's air force command said early Wednesday on Telegram.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said that russian forces They had made no significant progress along the 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) front line over the past week, according to a Facebook post on Wednesday, even as Russia said its forces had taken several villages in the east.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on his way to Italy to join a Group of Seven meeting as part of a diplomatic tour, touted the repulsed attack with missiles and drones as underscoring the urgent need for greater air defense. The bombing occurred before Russia's National Day, a public holiday.
“This result in protecting lives can be our daily achievement if we have enough tools to repel terrorist attacks,” Zelenskiy said on social media platform X, a day after securing new commitments from allies for military equipment at a conference in Berlin. He will meet US President Joe Biden on Wednesday.
All missiles and drones targeting kyiv were shot down before they reached the capital, the city's military administration said on Telegram. However, Falling debris injured one person in the surrounding region and sparked a massive fire at an undisclosed industrial facility.
In central Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, drone bombing injured at least two people and damaged nine residential buildings, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram.
Another attack by Russian terrorists this night. Recovery efforts are underway. The occupiers attempted a combined missile and drone strike on our country. Our air defenders responded effectively, shooting down five enemy missiles and more than 20 drones.
Such a result in… pic.twitter.com/EW1RecuMmH
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) June 12, 2024
On Tuesday, Zelenskiy attended a conference in Berlin focused on reconstruction and inspected a military base in northern Germany. where Ukrainian troops were training to operate the Patriot air defense systems, one of the most effective means of protection against missile bombardment.
Germany promised several thousand attack drones and 100 additional Patriot guided missiles to kyiv during Zelenskiy's visit. Italy said it is preparing another military package for kyiv that will include a SAMP-T defense system.
Russian authorities in the annexed region of Crimea They reported that Ukrainian missiles were shot down overnight over Sevastopoland debris fell on some city streets, the RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing Kremlin-appointed local governor Mikhail Razvozhayev.
The Russian Defense Ministry has periodically reported progress in the eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, although so far the troops have not managed to capture strategic cities such as Chasiv Yar, northeast of Donetsk, or Vovchansk, north of Kharkiv.
In northwest Russia, President Vladimir Putin's forces trained in an exercise to operate launchers capable of firing tactical nuclear weapons, the next phase of its joint exercises with its ally Belarus.
As the Russian military continued to attack along the front line, it also paraded Iskander-M missile launchers as part of the latest phase of its tactical nuclear weapons exercises, a show of force for kyiv and its allies. Units in the Leningrad region surrounding St. Petersburg practiced loading “special training ammunition” into the systems, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a post on Telegram.
