Russia launched a new offensive with drones in Ukrainian territory at dawn on Monday, especially in kyiv and Odessa, on the eve of a big military parade in Moscow to remember the Soviet victory over the Nazis in 1945.
Throughout the day, Russian forces launched 16 missiles at Ukrainian targets, according to the Ukrinform agency, in particular against the Kharkov, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions.
In addition, 61 fighter-bomber attacks were recorded, as well as 52 rocket impacts. While kyiv claimed that 35 kamikaze drones were shot down by its armed forces.
In Kiev, the city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, confirmed on his Telegram channel that “in the early morning of May 8, Moscow launched another large-scale attack against Ukraine.”
“Three people were injured in explosions in the Solomyanskyi district of kyiv, and two others were injured when the remains of a drone fell in the Sviatoshynskyi district, both west of the center of the capital, “he said.
Klitschko added that the remains of the Russian drone fell on a two-story building and that other explosions were recorded in the city. The city’s military administration explained, for its part, that debris also fell in the central Shevchenkivskyi district. A high pressure gas pipeline was damaged as a result of the impacts.
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Besides, a parked car caught fire in the courtyard of a residential building due to these attacks, and other drone debris fell on the highway and the runway of the Igor Sikorsky (Zhuliany) international airport, in the city.
In Odessa, the air alert was also active during the early morning and several explosions were heard after the attack with missiles that hit various points in this city located on the shores of the Black Sea, according to local officials. Russian forces fired Kh-22 missiles at a food company warehouse and recreational area on the Black Sea coast, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesman for the Odessa military administration.
The shelling on Monday, the authorities reported, caused power outages in the regions of Kherson, Zaporizhia (south), Donetsk, Kharkov (east), Sumy and Chernigov (north), all of them located on or near the front, according to reported the Ministry of Energy of Ukraine.
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“Fortunately, the massive nighttime bombardments of the capital Kiev region and the Odesa region have not caused damage to the energy infrastructure,” the institution announced on Telegram.
The country also experienced moments of alert when the Ukrainian military authorities activated the anti-aircraft alert throughout the territory before the possibility of a Russian attack with the Kinzhal supersonic missile.
“I want to remind you that we do not have enough Patriot systems that can protect the skies over Ukraine from this type of weaponry,” Yurii Ignat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said Monday.
The Kinzhal (‘dagger’, in Russian) are airborne missiles that have a range of more than 2,000 kilometers and a speed ten times greater than that of sound. This high-precision hypersonic missile can carry both nuclear warheads and conventional payloads.
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Parade in Moscow
The attack took place at a time when Ukraine claims it has finished preparations for a major counter-offensive, with the aim of recovering the territories occupied by Moscow in the east and south of the country.
But most of all, he showed up just right when Russia finalized the preparations to celebrate this Tuesday the Day of Victory over Nazi Germany amid strict security measures against possible Ukrainian sabotage.
For the first time in many years, the scene of the traditional military parade to celebrate the Victory was completely closed for two weeks, which was not the case even when the parades were attended by world-class leaders.
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The extraordinary security measures were adopted on April 26, long before last Wednesday two drones exploded next to the dome of the Kremlin Senate Palace, an attack of which Russia did not hesitate to accuse Ukraine and whose images shocked the country. As established by the protocol, Russian President Vladimir Putin will preside over the military parade and deliver a speech from the Red Square grandstand.
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kyiv, for its part, celebrated Victory Day on Monday and President Volodimir Zelensky stated that Ukraine will stop celebrating this event on May 9, as is done in Russia, and will now align itself with the countries of the European Union, which commemorate this historic milestone on May 8, a as the country seeks to further distance itself from Moscow.
During commemorations on Monday, Zelensky said that Putin’s Russia “will be defeated as Nazism was defeated.” And he declared: “We fought then and we fight now so that no one ever again enslaves other nations and destroys other countries.”
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from AFP and EFE
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