Russia’s Defense Ministry defended its large-scale overnight assault on Ukraine Tuesday, characterizing the attack as retaliation for what Moscow described as terrorist activities carried out by Ukrainian forces against Russian territory.
Officials in Ukraine reported that Russian missiles and drones bombarded the capital city and several other urban areas in the early morning hours Tuesday, resulting in no fewer than 11 fatalities and more than 100 injured civilians. The attack came after days of intelligence warnings about Russia preparing a significant offensive operation.
“Overnight, in response to terrorist acts of the Kyiv regime, the armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out a massive strike using high-precision long-range air-, land-, and sea-based weapons,” the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement.
According to the ministry’s account, Russian forces deployed hypersonic missiles and unmanned aircraft to strike seven different Ukrainian regions, including the capital, Zaporizhzhia, and Kharkiv. The ministry claimed successful hits on infrastructure supporting Ukrainian military operations, including fuel storage sites, transportation networks, and military aviation facilities.
Moscow had issued threats the previous week, announcing plans to conduct systematic bombardments of targets in the Ukrainian capital as revenge for what Russia characterized as a catastrophic Ukrainian drone assault on a student residence facility in Russian-controlled Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, an attack that claimed 21 lives.
Ukrainian officials countered that their forces had aimed at a drone operations center in that location rather than civilian students. Speaking Monday evening, Putin accused Ukrainian leadership of beginning a fresh chapter in what he called a series of criminal acts, referencing both the dormitory incident and a subsequent attack on residential buildings in a Russian-occupied section of Ukraine’s Kherson region. Each side rejects accusations of intentionally striking civilian populations.
