Russia and Ukraine exchange attacks with drones and ballistic missiles

Moscow. A new exchange of drone attacks between Russia and Ukraine was recorded early Tuesday morning, with the latter outnumbering the former in number and in affected regions. Ukraine’s response with ballistic and cruise missiles, including guided bombs, as has been the case on previous occasions, will not be long in coming until the following day at the latest.

According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, it shot down 144 unmanned aerial vehicles that attacked nine regions of Russia, 20 of them on the outskirts of Moscow – in Ramenskoye, Kolomna, Domodiedovo, Podolsk and Liubertsy, cities in the metropolitan area – which forced the suspension of operations of 48 flights at three airports in the Russian capital.

The Ukrainian Air Force reported that it had destroyed 36 of the 48 drones that Russia launched early Tuesday against kyiv, Chernihiv, Kirovograd, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mykolayiv, Odessa, Kherson and Zaporizhia. According to the military report, two missiles, one ballistic Iskander-M and one cruise missile, could not be intercepted.

Andrei Voroviov, the governor of the Moscow region, said that a 46-year-old woman died and three of her neighbours were hospitalised with severe injuries after fragments of a drone fell on a residential building in Ramenskoye. Photos circulating on social media and testimonies from other tenants support the version that there was a direct hit, which caused damage to 54 of the 102 apartments in the building.

Russian air defence systems intercepted 72 drones, half of which were launched from Ukraine, in the border region of Bryansk and 52 more in Kaluga, Belgorod, Kursk, Orlov, Voronezh, Tula and Lipetsk.

The previous massive Ukrainian attack occurred on September 1, with 158 drones shot down according to the Russian military, and on August 14 they claimed to have intercepted 117 unmanned aerial vehicles, which – in the opinion of experts – seems to suggest that Ukraine has the capacity to manufacture around 150 drones for a single massive attack every 10-15 days, not counting the ones it uses daily in combat, the latter of foreign origin.