Ukraine’s Interior Minister accused Russia of carrying out the largest number of attacks on populated areas since the war began on Tuesday, with 118 locations attacked in 10 Ukrainian regions.
“This is the highest number of cities and towns attacked since the beginning of the war,” Igor Klimenko wrote on his account on the social network Telegram, in a post taking stock of the Russian attacks in recent hours.
The minister pointed to last night’s drone attack on a refinery in the city of Kremenchuk, Poltava Oblast (administrative subdivision), in central Ukraine: “For several hours, almost a hundred firefighters fought the fire,” Klimenko described, congratulating himself . there were no fatalities.
Regional authorities had previously reported an explosion at the refinery that forced infrastructure shutdowns.
Igor Klimenko also mentioned air and artillery strikes in Kharkov (northeast), Donetsk (east), Dnipropetrovsk (center), Kherson and Mikolayiv (south).
These attacks caused three deaths in the Kharkov, Donetsk and Kherson regions, according to the minister.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu assured that the F-16 fighters promised to Ukraine will last only “20 days” if Russian air defense systems work as they have done so far.
In a telephone conference with senior commanders of the Russian armed forces last month, Shoigu claimed the shooting down of 31 Ukrainian fighter jets, “almost twice” the number of North American F-16s promised to Ukraine.
“This means that if the operation of our air defense system continues like this, they will be operational for about 20 days,” the defense minister said, as quoted by Russian news agency Interfax.
According to Sergei Shoigu, “the air defense teams are working successfully”: “In the past month, they have destroyed more than 1,400 enemy air weapons, including 37 aircraft and six tactical ATACMS missiles produced by the United States,” he emphasized.
The Russian ruler also stressed that despite all the arsenal it receives from its NATO allies, Ukraine is suffering defeats on the Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia fronts.
“They are exhausted, the demoralization of the staff is increasing,” he said.
The F-16s are one of Kiev’s top requests from its international partners, as the Soviet-made fighter jets it has are outdated compared to Russian aircraft. Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium are among the countries that have agreed to send these fighter planes, and Ukrainian pilots are currently being trained to fly them.
Source: DN
