Kiev:
Russia launched a record 188 drones at Ukraine overnight, Kiev said on Tuesday, amid rising international tensions after Russia fired a nuclear-capable missile that could reach European cities.
The Kremlin refused on Tuesday to confirm that Ukrainian forces had again launched US-supplied long-range ATACMS against Russia this week, but blamed Washington for escalating the conflict.
Moscow and Kiev have ramped up their drone and missile programs, with Ukraine recently firing US long-range missiles at Russia and the Kremlin retaliating with an experimental hypersonic missile.
The barrage came as ambassadors from Ukraine and the 32 NATO members were due to meet in Brussels over the Russian firing of the medium-range missile into the city of Dnipro last week.
“During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified Shahed drones,” the air force said on Tuesday, referring to Iranian-designed drones and estimating the total number of drones fired at 188.
The air force said it shot down 76 Russian drones in 17 regions, while another 95 were lost from their radars or downed by electronic jamming defense systems. What happened to the rest is not specified.
Moscow also fired four Iskander-M ballistic missiles, the air force said.
“Unfortunately, critical infrastructure facilities have been affected and private and apartment buildings have been damaged in several regions,” a statement said.
Explosions in Kiev
AFP journalists heard explosions over the capital, while Kiev city officials said the air raid siren had lasted five hours and that 10 Russian drones had been shot down there.
In the western Ternopil region, which is among areas that survived the worst of the fighting, authorities said drones had damaged a “critical infrastructure facility,” without elaborating.
However, they said the attack had disrupted electricity in the town of Ternopil and surrounding towns, and that engineers were working to stabilize supplies.
Putin had said last week that the new missile attack was a response to Ukraine firing weapons supplied by the United States and Britain at Russia.
The Kremlin leader warned that Moscow believed it had the right to strike military facilities in countries where Ukraine could use its weapons against Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky last week called the attack “the latest bout of Russian madness” and called for updated air defense systems to counter the new threat.
Kiev says it hopes to achieve “concrete and meaningful results” after convening the NATO-Ukraine Council meeting.
But diplomats and officials at NATO tempered expectations for any major results from the talks Tuesday afternoon at the alliance’s headquarters in Brussels.
The most expected is a repeat of NATO’s previous emphasis that Moscow’s deployment of the new weapons “will not deter NATO allies from supporting Ukraine.”
Russian troops advance
The meeting “will provide an opportunity to discuss the current security situation in Ukraine and will include briefings from Ukrainian officials via video link,” a NATO official said.
The Kremlin has rejected the meeting as it is unlikely any major decisions will be made.
On the battlefield, Ukraine’s weary troops struggle to hold back the advance of Russian forces in the country’s east.
Russia said on Tuesday its forces had captured another village in the Kharkov region, in an area where the front line was relatively stable until recently.
The Defense Ministry said its units had “liberated” the settlement of Kopanky, a village near the Ukrainian-occupied city of Kupiansk that was previously captured by Russian forces at the start of the 2022 offensive before being captured by Ukraine later that year was recaptured. .
Moscow also confirmed on Tuesday that it had detained a British man it captured while fighting for Ukraine during Kiev’s offensive in Russia’s western Kursk region.
A court in the region said on Monday it had taken James Scott Rhys Anderson into custody on the grounds that he had “participated in armed hostilities on the territory of the Kursk region”.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)