LONDON — Russian forces targeted regions throughout Ukraine with at least 479 attack drones, marking one of the largest such overnight aerial strikes of the war, Ukraine’s air force said Monday.
“According to preliminary data, as of 10:30, air defense neutralized 479 enemy air attack vehicles, 292 were shot down by fire weapons, 187 were lost in location,” the air force said in a message posted in Ukrainian.
The Ukrainian air force issued a series of alerts beginning early Monday, saying Russian drones were targeting areas throughout much of the country.
Russia in turn accused Ukraine of launching drones at civilian targets in two Kursk districts.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said it had destroyed at least 49 drones fired by Ukraine overnight.
LONDON — Ukraine’s air force said Monday that Russian forces launched at least 479 attack drones against areas across the country, one of the biggest overnight aerial attacks of the conflict.
The air force stated in a message posted in Ukrainian that “479 enemy air attack vehicles were neutralized by air defense as of 10:30, 292 were shot down by fire weapons, and 187 were lost in location,” according to preliminary data.
The military claimed that Russia launched 20 more missiles of various kinds, including over ten cruise missiles. Beginning early Monday, the Ukrainian air force sent out a number of warnings, claiming that Russian drones were targeting locations across a large portion of the nation.
According to the Polish armed forces, those alerts caused Polish and allied aircraft to momentarily scramble in Polish airspace as Russia launched its aerial strikes.
In a statement translated by ABC News into Polish, the Polish military said that the operation commander of the Polish military “launched all available forces and resources at his disposal, the on-duty fighter pairs were scrambled, and the ground-based air defense and radar reconnaissance systems reached the highest state of readiness.”.
The military stated that the warplane launches were “preventative in nature” and that Polish airspace had not been violated.
Ukraine was accused by Russia of using drones to target civilians in two districts of Kursk. Two people were hurt in the strikes, according to Alexander Khinshtein, the region’s acting governor, who posted on the Telegram messaging app.
Overnight, Ukraine fired at least 49 drones, which the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have destroyed. The ministry posted on its Telegram channel that those drones had been fired at seven regions.
