In one of the largest drone offensives in recent months, Russia launched a wide-ranging attack on Ukraine, targeting multiple cities, including Kyiv, and sparking a fire at an industrial site in the western Ternopil region, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday.
According to Ukraine’s air force, 51 of the 136 drones used in the assault were shot down, with 60 more still unaccounted for, possibly intercepted by electronic warfare systems. An additional 20 drones were reportedly still airborne.
A large-scale fire ignited in the Ternopil region as a result of the strike, with almost 50 firefighters battling to contain it, officials reported via the Telegram messaging app. “There were no injuries,” they confirmed, without disclosing the nature of the facility that was struck.
The air force also reported two missile attacks targeting the northern Chernihiv and eastern Donetsk regions. However, it did not provide further details on the outcome of those strikes.
Russia has yet to issue any statement on this latest offensive.
In the Kyiv region, one of the drone strikes led to a fire at a private residence, while several other buildings sustained damage, according to governor Ruslan Kravchenko. Despite the destruction, no casualties were reported.
Kyiv remained under air alerts for over 12 hours during the onslaught. Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration, noted that all drones targeting the capital were successfully intercepted, with no injuries or additional damage reported.
Throughout this year, Russian strikes have consistently targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, leaving Ukrainians across the country to face the likelihood of power outages as winter approaches. The governors of the southern Kherson and Mykolaiv regions have reported power cuts, with authorities in Mykolaiv confirming that 272,000 residents had been impacted by the latest outages.
As the drone strikes intensify, Russia has begun evacuating 30,000 civilians from areas near its border with Ukraine, further raising tensions in the already volatile region.
