8-hour Russian drone strike keeps Kyiv on edge as war in Ukraine approaches 1,000 days

KYIV, Ukraine. Dozens of Russian drones targeted Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, in an eight-hour overnight attack, authorities said Thursday, as Russia continued its relentless strikes on Ukraine after almost 1000 days of war.

Single Russian drones, as well as swarms of drones, entered Ukrainian airspace from different directions and at different altitudes, officials said, in an apparent attempt to stretch air defense systems and unnerve the city’s residents.

Ukrainian air defense “destroyed” three dozen drones, but the falling debris caused damage to a hospital, as well as residential and administrative buildings in Kyiv, local authorities reported. The fire broke out on the 33rd floor of a residential building.

At least two people were reported injured.

Drone attacks on Kyiv Lately, there have been near-daily incidents, with nightly explosions and the constant buzz of drones keeping the city on edge. Earlier this week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said that Russia is deploying about 10 times more Iranian-made Shahed drones than it did at this time last year.

The armed forces of Ukraine are trying to match the power of the Russian army, which is much larger and better equipped. Western support is crucial for Ukraine to withstand an expensive war of attrition. Uncertainty about how long this assistance will last deepened this week following the election of Donald Trump as the next US president. Trump has repeatedly criticized US aid to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia is trying to stifle Ukraine’s appetite for struggle and deprive Kyiv of Western support, prolonging the conflict.

According to Andrii Kovalenko, the head of the State Center for Combating Disinformation, the Russian shelling mostly involves Iranian Shahed drones, which terrorize the civilian population.

Kovalenko said Thursday that Russia is committed to maintaining and stockpiling its missiles, which are far more powerful than drones, even though Russia has used missiles effectively in its campaign disable Ukraine’s power grid.

In addition, drone attacks are gradually wearing down Ukraine’s air defenses, making it more vulnerable to future missile launches.

Over the course of a day on Thursday, Russia carried out five missile-planning strikes on Zaporizhzhia, as a result of which at least one person was killed and 10 were injured, including a one-year-old child, the press service of the regional military administration reports. It is noted that the attacks damaged residential buildings and a hospital.

It is reported that in the Zhytomyr region, which borders Kyiv in the west, due to the Russian attack there were power outages there, the energy company “Zhytomyroblenergo” reports.

As a result of another attack by a Russian drone in Odesa, one person was injured, Oleg Kiper, the governor of the region, said, and debris from the drone damaged an 11-story residential building.

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