KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukraine air defenses shot down 35 Iranian-made drones over Kyiv in Russia’s latest nighttime assault, as attacks across Ukraine by the Kremlin’s forces killed three civilians, officials said Monday as Moscow enforced tight security on the eve of traditional Red Square commemorations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
Five people in the capital were injured by falling drone debris, according to Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Air raid alarms sounded for more than three hours during the night.
Drone wreckage struck a two-story apartment building in Kyiv’s western Svyatoshynskyi district, while other debris struck a car parked nearby, setting it on fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post.
Facing economic sanctions and limits on its supply chains due to its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has routinely turned to Iran’s Shahed drones to bolster its firepower.
Russian shelling of 127 targets across northern, southern and eastern parts of Ukraine killed three civilians, the Ukrainian defense ministry said.
The Kremlin’s forces used tanks, drones, mortars, warplanes, multiple rocket launchers and surface-to-air missiles to bombard Ukraine, the report said.
Russian long-range bombers launched up to eight cruise missiles at Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, authorities said.
Some of the Soviet-era cruise missiles fired against the Odesa region self-destructed or fell into the sea before reaching their targets, according to Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuri Ihnat.
In addition, six Russian rockets also struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk during the night, a regional official reported Monday.
The missiles targeted the city’s industrial zone and caused no casualties, Donetsk regional governor Petro Kyrylenko said in a Telegram post.
Mayor of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, examines high-rise residential building damaged by remains of a shot down Russian drone in Kyiv on May 8, 2023, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP) (Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Russian authorities were preparing for celebrations on Tuesday of Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular holiday, amid tight security. Many regions have canceled their May 9 observances because of concerns the events could be targets for Ukrainian attacks.
May 9 is normally a bank holiday in Ukraine, too, but not this year, because of the war.
On top of that, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday he had sent a draft bill to parliament proposing a Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II on May 8 and a Day of Europe on May 9, further distancing Kyiv from Moscow.
Zelenskyy equated Russia’s goals in Ukraine with those of the Nazis. “Unfortunately, evil has returned,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram. “Although now it is another aggressor, the goal is the same – enslavement or destruction.”
Meanwhile, Russian-installed authorities have begun evacuating residents of Tokmak, a town in the frontline southern Zaporizhzhia region, towards the Black Sea coast, Ukraine’s General Staff said.
Those working for Kremlin-appointed local authorities, as well as children and educational workers, are being relocated to Berdyansk, a Russian-occupied seaside city some 100 kilometers southeast, it said.
The report came just days after Yevhen Balitsky, the Russian-appointed governor of the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region, ordered the evacuation of civilians from 18 settlements there on Friday, including Enerhodar which neighbors the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Speculation has been mounting for months about the timing and focus of Ukraine’s expected spring offensive, with some analysts saying Kyiv might try to strike south into Zaporizhzhia in order to split Russian forces and cut Moscow´s land link to occupied Crimea.
This photograph taken on May 8, 2023, shows a broken window of a heavily damage flat in the high-rise residential building damaged by remains of a shot down Russian drone in Kyiv, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Genya SAVILOV / AFP) (Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)
In a separate development, the Russian military command has promised the Wagner Group, a private military company, additional ammunition and equipment for its offensive in the eastern city of Bakhmut, Wagner founder Yevgeniy Prigozhin said in an audio statement published by his press service.
The statement Sunday came just days after Prigozhin on Friday threatened that Wagner fighters may pull out of the embattled city, where they have for weeks been Russia’s main assault force. He accused Russia’s military command of starving Wagner of ammunition and causing it heavy losses.
The threat marked another flareup in Prigozhin’s long-running dispute with Russia’s regular military over credit and tactics in the war. In the statement Sunday, Prigozhin claimed that Russian defense officials have since committed to providing the mercenaries with “ammunition and equipment, as much as is needed to continue” and given Wagner a free hand to take operational decisions in Bakhmut.
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