Massive attacks on Kiev. The Ukrainian army shot down 16 drones
Residents of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv were called to air raid shelters on Friday morning as sirens blared across the city, a day after Russia launched its biggest airstrike since the war began in February, Reuters reports .
Shortly after 2:00 a.m., Kyiv city authorities issued an alert on the Telegram channel regarding air raid sirens and asked residents to head to shelters. The governor of the Kyiv region, Oleksei Kuleba, stated on Telegram that a "drone attack" is underway.
At the same time, the Ukrainian Air Force reported that, on the night of December 29-30, the Russian army sent 16 Iranian Shahed-131/136 drones to attack the territory of Ukraine. The drones were launched by the Russians from the southeast and north. All 16 drones were destroyed. Earlier, the mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Kliciko, said that on the night of Thursday to Friday, the Russians launched seven kamikaze drones, which were shot down by the Ukrainian army - five over the capital and two near the city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video message on Thursday evening that during the day the air commands in central, southern, eastern and western Ukraine repelled 54 Russian missiles and 11 drones. Zelenskiy admitted that most regions are experiencing power outages. Areas where the lack of electricity was "particularly difficult" included the capital Kyiv, Odesa and Kherson in the south and surrounding regions, but also the region around Lviv, near the western border with Poland, Zelenski said. More than 18 residential buildings and 10 critical infrastructure facilities were destroyed in the latest attacks, the Defense Ministry said. Waves of Russian airstrikes in recent months targeting energy infrastructure have left millions without electricity in temperatures that often dip below freezing.
