Russia attacks Ukraine with more than 450 drones and missiles after promising revenge

BarcelonaThe Russian army turned Kiev and many other Ukrainian cities into hell early Friday morning. Two days after Vladimir Putin promised revenge Due to the Ukrainian operation against several Russian airfields, Moscow launched a combined attack with 407 drones and 45 missiles, according to Ukrainian forces. Air defenses were able to intercept 199 unmanned aircraft and deflect another 169. They were also able to shoot down 36 missiles, but those that hit caused at least four deaths and 73 injuries, according to local media.

The hardest hit city was Kiev, where three deaths were reported (all three rescue personnel) and around twenty injuries, of which 17 are hospitalized, according to Mayor Vitali Klichko. The fourth fatality was recorded in Lutsk, in the north of the country.

The Kremlin has claimed that tonight's massive attack was in response to "terrorist attacks" committed by Ukraine, referring to the attacks in recent days on the Kretz bridge in Crimea and the collapse of two railway bridges in Bryansk and Kursk. In a statement, the Russian Defense Ministry said it used long-range weapons launched from the air, sea, and land to attack "military targets." However, reports and images from independent media show that civilian buildings were attacked. In Kiev, for example, one of the affected buildings housed a library.

The attacks caused fires in at least three apartment buildings in the capital, according to local authorities, and also damaged a school and a gas station. In addition, the bombing damaged metro tracks and cables (an infrastructure used by civilians for shelter) and caused service disruptions.

According to Ukrainian forces, Putin's military has launched a large number of Iranian-made Shahed drones, as well as non-explosive replicas, likely to saturate air defense systems. Russian forces have also launched six Iskander-M or KN-23 ballistic missiles, 36 Kh-101 cruise missiles, two Iskander-K cruise missiles, and one Kh-31P supersonic missile. Ukraine has managed to shoot down four of the ballistic missiles and 32 of the cruise missiles.

"They have attacked almost all of Ukraine: the Volhynia, Lviv, Ternopil, Kiev, Sumi, Poltava, Khmelnytskyy, Cherkassi, and Chernihiv regions," Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media, where he also posted photographs of residential areas hit by the shelling.

Pressure on Russia

The Ukrainian president has once again called on his Western allies to pressure Moscow to end the war. "Russia must pay for this [...]. Now is exactly the moment when the United States, Europe, and everyone around the world can stop this war by putting pressure on Russia," he wrote.

Ukraine is trying to get the Trump administration to turn up the heat against the Kremlin and pressure it to accept a ceasefire so they can move toward a long-term peace agreement. But the US president has only hinted that he might apply sanctions against Russia, but in practice, he has not applied any additional measures to force Putin to negotiate. In fact, it was Trump who conveyed Putin's promise of revenge on Wednesday after speaking by phone. "President Putin has said, quite forcefully, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields," the US leader said, adding nothing further, implying that he had not tried to get it out of his mind.

That same day, the Russian president had called the Ukrainian offensive a "terrorist attack" and said that these actions were aimed at disrupting peace talks between Kiev and Moscow. He again ruled out an immediate 30-day ceasefire, as proposed by Kiev and its European partners, and a bilateral meeting with Zelensky.