Ukrainian forces shot down 26 out of 28 attack drones launched overnight by Russia, Kyiv‘s military said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
The air force added that Russia’s overnight attack included several types of missiles. The military’s southern command reported on Telegram that those launched from planes over the Black Sea had “lost their combat capability.”
“On the night of March 28, 2024, the enemy launched a missile air strike against Ukraine using three Kh-22 cruise missiles and an Kh-31P anti-radar missile (from the Black Sea), an S-300 anti-aircraft guided missile (Donetsk) and 28 attack UAVs of the ‘Shahed-136/131’ type,” Mykola Oleshchuk, the head of Ukraine’s air force, wrote on Telegram, France 24 reports.
“Twenty-six attack UAVs of the ‘Shahed-136/131’ type were destroyed within Odesa, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Zaporizhzhia regions”, he said, without providing details on the missile strikes.
Russia regularly launches air attacks on Ukraine overnight and has escalated the strikes over the past few weeks, targeting key infrastructure, including power stations, in retaliation for fatal bombardments of Russia’s border regions, according to France24.
On Wednesday Russian strikes killed three people in eastern and southern Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged Ukraine’s allies to speed up deliveries of warplanes and air defence systems to bolster Kyiv’s air defences.