Russia Launches Massive Overnight Missile and Drone Attacks on Ukraine, Killing at Least 16

Kyiv (Terror Monitor) — Russia launched a massive overnight barrage of missiles and hundreds of armed drones against several parts of Ukraine between Wednesday and Thursday, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 40, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Most of the attacks targeted the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, where at least 15 people were killed and dozens more injured, according to Ukrainian officials.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was suffering heavy casualties from increasingly intense Russian air attacks in recent weeks because its forces no longer had enough U.S.-made Patriot air defence systems.

Zelenskyy called for the delivery of additional Western air defence systems, saying the international response to the enormous human and material losses Ukraine was suffering as a result of Russian aggression had not always been adequate.

Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia used around 170 armed drones and dozens of missiles in the overnight attacks targeting Kyiv and several other regions.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the Russian missiles included cruise missiles as well as ballistic and hypersonic missiles.

The Air Force claimed that Ukrainian air defence systems destroyed approximately 90 percent of the Russian missiles and combat drones in the air.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko told Reuters that one of the Russian strikes during the night of August 19-20 hit the upper floors of a nine-storey residential building in the capital.

Klitschko said several upper floors of the building in Kyiv’s Solomianskyi district were destroyed, with a number of residents among the 15 people killed in the capital alone.

Dozens of other civilians living in the building were also injured.

Following the high civilian death toll, Klitschko declared Friday, August 21, a day of mourning in Kyiv.