KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired missiles and drones at 11 regions of Ukraine, the Ukrainian air force said Monday, in a 33rd consecutive night of airstrikes behind the front lines and setting a new monthly record for drone barrages.
Multiple explosions and machine gun fire were heard in Kiev throughout the night as the Ukrainian capital’s air defenses fended off a drone attack for five hours.
No casualties were reported in Kiev or elsewhere, although a “critical infrastructure object” in the southern region of Mykolaiv caught fire, Governor Vitalii Kim said, without elaborating.
Russia has increasingly used Shahed drones instead of more expensive missiles in its aerial bombardment of Ukrainian cities since the large-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
In September alone, the country launched more than 1,300 Shahed drones in Ukraine – the highest number of drone strikes in a single month since the start of the war.
Ukraine has also developed a new generation of drones for the battlefield and for long-range attacks deep in Russia. More than a hundred Ukrainian drones were shot down over Russia on Sunday, Russian officials said.
Also on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a video to mark the second anniversary of the annexation of four Ukrainian territories, and again accused the West of turning Ukraine into “a military base aimed at Russia.”
Putin was speaking on the occasion of the annexation of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions of Ukraine, following a 2022 referendum that the West denounced as a sham. Russia also illegally annexed Crimea in 2014.
Since 2022, Putin said, businesses in the occupied territories are being “actively restored” and hospitals and schools are being rebuilt.
Thousands of Ukrainians fled the four regions as a result of the Russian invasion, but Putin said the Russian military operation in the country was aimed at defending the “well-being” of residents and the “future for our children and grandchildren.”
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