Russia launches fresh air attacks on Ukraine

Gulf Today Report

Ukraine declared an air raid alert over the whole country early on Thursday and senior officials said air defences units were shooting down incoming Russian missiles, while fighting also intensified in Bakhmut in the east.

Ukraine said on Thursday that Russian forces had fired more than 30 missiles at targets across the country, in the latest wave of attacks that have put pressure on Ukraine's air defence systems.

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"We expect more than 30 missiles, which have already started to appear in various territories. Air defence systems are working," Yuriy Ignat, a Ukrainian military spokesman, told local media.

The attacks come after the United States and Germany announced plans to arm Ukraine with dozens of modern battle tanks in its fight against Russia, which denounced the decisions as an "extremely dangerous" step.

"The first Russian missiles have been shot down," Andriy Yermak, head of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said.

Overnight, the military said its anti-aircraft defences had shot down all 24 drones sent by Russia, 15 around the capital, Kyiv. There were no reports of damage.

The attacks come after the United States and Germany announced plans to arm Ukraine.

Russia has targeted critical infrastructure with missile and drone strikes since October, causing sweeping blackouts and other outages during the bitter winter.

Earlier, Zelenskiy praised the US and German commitments to send tanks and urged allies to provide large quantities of tanks quickly.

"The key now is speed and volumes. Speed in training our forces, speed in supplying tanks to Ukraine. The numbers in tank support," he said in a nightly video address on Wednesday. "We have to form such a 'tank fist', such a 'fist of freedom'."

Meanwhile, Ukraine has claimed that it had shot down a cluster of Iranian-made attack drones launched by Russian forces from the Sea of Azov in the south of the country.

"Attack UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle) were launched from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov. According to preliminary information, the enemy used 24 Shaheds. All 24 were destroyed," the Ukrainian air force said in a statement online.