Russia launched several waves of air strikes on Ukraine targeting the capital and Odesa in the early hours of Sunday morning.
The eastern half of Ukraine was kept under air raid alert for more than five hours early on Sunday due to the Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration said.
Mr Popko said the majority of the air weapons were destroyed on their approach, and, according to preliminary information, there were no reports of damage or injuries. But Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of the southern region of Kherson, said early on Sunday on Telegram that one civilian had died and 15 were injured in Russia’s attacks on the region in the past 24 hours. Russia has not commented on the attacks.
“The enemy once again used its drones against Kyiv overnight!” Mr Popko said on the Telegram messaging app. “Russian drones entered the capital of Ukraine in several waves and from different directions.”
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the war, which Russia launched with a full-scale invasion of its smaller neighbour in February 2022. But thousands of civilians have died, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
Professor Anthony Glees, a Russian intelligence security expert at the University of Buckingham, told i that he considers Russia’s latest wave of “grim” air strikes a “turning point” that “deliberately targeted civilians.”
He said: “It seems civilians were deliberately targeted and the destruction of property will now have reached middle eastern proportions. We don’t know the details at the moment but Putin is trying to systematically obliterate Ukraine.”
Hennadii Trukhanov, mayor of the Black Sea port of Odesa, said on Telegram that Russia targeted the southern city overnight, with several explosions reported.
Ukrainian forces said they shot down a Russian fighter plane on Saturday in the Donetsk province, near the city of Kostiantynivka.
The head of the Kostiantynivka Military Administration Serhiy Horbunov told Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne the craft had been successfully forced down on Saturday.
Images appear to show the remains of a damaged plane in the rubble of a structure it landed in. Local authorities said the craft was a new-model, heavy unmanned aerial vehicle S-70 Okhotnik or a variation of Sukhoi fighting jet.
On Saturday Ukrainian president Vlodomyr Zelensky thanked Ukrainians for destroying Russian military logistics, and “especially for hitting Russian military airfields.”
Through a video message on Telegram, he continued: “This is the most needed thing. Every destroyed Russian military base, every destroyed Russian airbase, every destroyed warehouse with aerial bombs saves the lives of Ukrainians and provides real support for the front.
“We will keep convincing our partners that our drones alone are not enough. More decisive steps are needed – and the end of this war will be closer. I am sure of it!”
Professor Glees added: “We have now in my view reached a turning-point, not least in respect of Russian gains at the front and the limited Ukrainian retreat from Vuhledar.
“I don’t think there’s any mystery as to why this is a turning-point, the issue is why we in NATO have allowed this to happen and whether we are now prepared to turn it back again in Ukraine’s favour.
“Putin is watching what’s going on in Gaza and Lebanon very carefully. He sees two things that are hugely important.
“First is a US president no longer in control of events, painfully elderly, even pre-senile, incapable of making peace, with a government that is already in election limbo and a real prospect of Trump back in the White House who’ll let him finish off Ukraine.
“This is a huge opportunity for Putin. Secondly he sees how Netanyahu is able to destroy his enemies of Gaza and Lebanon with impunity.”
