Ukraine Downs Flood of Iranian Drones, Kyiv Residents Urged To Shelter—ISW

Russia intensified an aerial assault on Ukraine this week, pummeling regions nationwide and forcing Kyiv residents into shelter early on Friday as the city was hit by a Russian drone attack.

A day after Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces launched a barrage of strikes against critical Ukrainian infrastructure, air raid alerts sounded in the country's central Kyiv, Cherkasy and Kirovohrad regions due to possible Russian drone attacks.

An "attack by drones" was underway early Friday, Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of Kyiv region, said on his Telegram channel.

Ukraine's military said Russia launched 16 Iranian-made Shahed drones, and that they were all destroyed by its air defense systems.

Kyiv's mayor Vitali Klitschko said seven of the drones were aimed at Ukraine's capital, with two of them shot down near the city, and the other five destroyed over Kyiv. He said a residential building and a non-residential building were partially destroyed as a result of falling debris.

Valentyn Reznichenko, head of Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said on Telegram that Ukrainian air defense systems also shot down five Shahed drones in three of the region's districts.

On Friday morning, the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces Friday said Russia had in the past 24 hours launched 85 missile strikes, 35 air strikes, and 63 strikes from multiple-rocket launch systems.

Russia has used the Shahed-136 UAVs, which are commonly referred to as "kamikaze" drones, extensively since October to target Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

The U.K.'s Defense Ministry said on October 24 that Ukrainian efforts to destroy the Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones have become "increasingly successful."

The latest wave of attacks come after Russian forces conducted a massive series of missile strikes against Ukrainian critical infrastructure on Thursday.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a U.S.-based think tank, said Thursday that Ukrainian officials reported Russian forces launched 69 cruise missiles and 23 drones at Ukraine, and that Ukrainian air defenses shot down 54 of the missiles and at least 11 of the drones.

"Ukrainian sources reported that Russian forces struck targets, primarily infrastructure facilities, in Lviv, Kyiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Donetsk oblasts causing widespread disruptions to energy, heating, and water supplies," the ISW said in its daily assessment of the war in Ukraine.

Russian sources said that Putin's forces also struck various targets across Ukraine, including Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Khmelnytskyi in the west, and Poltava and Sumy in the east, the think tank said.

Ten months into the war, Russia and Ukraine do not appear to be any step closer to holding peace talks. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Thursday rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's "peace formula" as a basis for talks.

"It is obvious that Kyiv is not ready for dialogue," Lavrov was quoted as saying by Russia's state-run news agency RIA Novosti.

Newsweek has reached out to Russia's Foreign Ministry for comment.

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