Damaged House of Organ and Chamber Music in Dnipro. Photo: Alexander Ganzha / Telegram
As a result of a massive Russian overnight strike on Ukraine, 11 people were killed and at least 53 others were injured, including 35 in Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
The main target of the attack was the Ukrainian capital. According to the head of state, in particular, two Russian drones deliberately attacked the area where the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra and the Mystetskyi Arsenal are located.
Details of the Russian attack. As military expert and retired Ukrainian Armed Forces colonel Roman Svitan told Novaya Europe, on Monday night Ukraine was attacked by more than 600 drones, 34 Iskander-M ballistic missiles, and six Zircon missiles. In addition, he said, Russia launched about 30 Kh-101 and Iskander K cruise missiles.
According to Svitan, about 500 drones and the overwhelming majority of the missiles were aimed at Kyiv and the surrounding region, while several ballistic missiles also struck Dnipro.
The expert said that Ukrainian air defense forces shot down all cruise missiles, 15 ballistic missiles, and most of the drones. However, he stressed that some drones and ballistic missiles still penetrated the air defense lines.
Russia also struck frontline territories that night with S-300 and S-400 missiles, Alexander Kovalenko, a military-political observer for the Information Resistance group, told Novaya-Europe. According to him, the attack also involved 611 Shahed-136 and Italmas drones, Gerbera and Parodiya decoy UAVs, as well as the rare missile-like Banderol drone.
Experts on the strike on the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that the strike on the Lavra was caused by a Patriot missile. Both experts interviewed by Novaya-Europe disagreed with that claim.
“Such a strike could only have been carried out deliberately. It is simply impossible to confuse a church building with some other object. All the stories that fragments of an anti-aircraft missile fell on the Lavra are ordinary Russian propaganda. Russia never takes responsibility for war crimes,” Svitan said.
Kovalenko supported Svitan’s position, noting that a missile or part of it hitting the church would have caused more serious destruction. He added that the booster section of an interceptor missile would also have left a different type of damage.
The significance of the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra. The Lavra is one of the main Orthodox shrines, founded in 1051. It is included on the UNESCO World Heritage List and, because of the war, was added to the list of cultural heritage sites under threat.