KYIV: Russian forces launched a major drone assault on Kyiv overnight and attacked several other regions, Ukrainian officials said on Tuesday, but there were no reports of casualties.

“New massive air attack on the capital,” wrote the Kyiv City Military Administration, adding that it was the first attack on the Ukrainian capital in 18 days to use Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones.

Russia had launched a wave of aerial attacks on critical Ukrainian infrastructure over the winter months but those cruise missile and drone strikes have become less frequent. The Ukrainian air force said on Tuesday it had downed a total of 32 attack drones out of 35 launched by Russia’s forces.

In the western city of Lviv, drones hit “critical infrastructure”, the head of the regional administration, Maksym Kozytski, wrote on Telegram, without giving further details.

The military administration of Zaporizhzhia said the southern city and its surroundings had been the target of a “massive attack” aimed at civilian infrastructure.

Ukraine has recently bolstered its air defence systems with Western-supplied weapons and the number of Russian missiles and drones breaking through has diminished. But the spokesman for Ukraine’s air forces, Yuriy Ignat, said that newly supplied systems were still insufficient to cover the whole country.

“Air defence systems are deployed where they are most needed, protecting large cities, infrastructure facilities, nuclear power facilities and the front line,” he said on local television.

“There is a lack of air defence capabilities — to put it mildly — to cover a country like Ukraine, like Israel has done.” Three Iranian-made drones were also shot down over the southern region of Mykolaiv, governor Vitaliy Kim said on Telegram.

Published in Dawn, June 21st, 2023