Ukraine claimed this Sunday, May 28 to have countered in the night “the most important drone attack” on kyiv “since the start of the invasion”. At least two people died and three were injured in the capital. Military authorities claimed to have destroyed 52 of the 54 explosive drones launched by Moscow in the country. This new attack was described as “massive”, with drones descending on kyiv “from several directions at once”. Forty would have flown over the capital, targeted for the fourteenth time in a month – an unprecedented series.
On Telegram, the military administration clarified that the attack “took place in several waves, and the air alert lasted more than five hours!”. “According to preliminary data, more than 40 Russian drones were destroyed by anti-aircraft defense” over kyiv, she said. According to the regional administration, “after the destruction of the Russian” drones, “debris fell on a seven-storey building” in the Golosiïvskiï district, killing one person and injuring another. A fire also broke out in a warehouse area: one person was injured, according to the same source.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the “heroes” of anti-aircraft defense on Sunday: “Every time you shoot down enemy drones and missiles, lives are saved,” he thanked in a message posted on Telegram.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia was targeting “military installations and critical infrastructure in the central regions of the country, in particular in the Kiev region”. The drone war thus continues to rage between Ukraine and Russia, the use of these small remotely piloted devices in conflict zones having exploded on the Ukrainian front. Russian territory has also been targeted in recent weeks by a series of such attacks in addition to sabotage, at a time when Kiev says it is finalizing its preparations before launching an assault aimed at reconquering all the territories occupied by Moscow. , including the annexed Crimea.
Russia: two dead in strikes on border regions of Ukraine
Two people were killed Saturday in Russia in strikes on border regions of Ukraine, announced the regional authorities, at a time when the Russian territory faces an unprecedented series of attacks. “One person died. This is a security guard at a city enterprise. At the time of the strike, he was on the street,” the governor of the Belgorod region said on Telegram.
According to him, “two teenagers: a 15-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy” were also injured in this attack on the village of Chebekino, very close to the Ukrainian border. They were “transported to a children’s hospital”.
The Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, was the target earlier this week of a spectacular armed incursion from Ukrainian territory, and is regularly the target of strikes. Elsewhere along the Ukrainian border, Kursk region governor Roman Starovoit reported the death of a worker following a mortar fire near the village of Plekhovo. Other drone attacks have been reported on infrastructure such as pipelines or oil pumping stations in the country. Moscow has blamed kyiv – and its Western backers – for the growing number of attacks and sabotage operations. Generally, Ukraine denies these accusations.
F-16 delivery: Westerners “playing with fire”, denounces Lavrov
Westerners are “playing with fire” after the recent green light from the United States for future deliveries of F-16 fighter jets to Kiev, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov denounced on Sunday. “It is an unacceptable escalation” led by “Washington, London and their satellites within the EU” who want to “weaken Russia”, he supported in an interview on Russian state television. According to him, through the delivery of modern armaments to Kiev, the West wants to “inflict (on Moscow) a strategic defeat” and “dismember” Russia, a rhetoric regularly used by Russian leaders.
Supporters of Kiev had refused for more than a year to supply fighter jets to the Ukrainian army, for fear of an escalation of the conflict, but the United States finally gave the green light on May 19 . This represents a major turning point in Western support for kyiv. The delivery schedule for these American-made F-16s and their number have not yet been decided. Ukrainian pilots must be trained for several months to learn how to handle them.
Tehran accuses Zelensky of criticizing Iran for more weapons
Tehran on Saturday accused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky of criticizing Iran in a bid to get more aid and weapons from the West in the conflict against Russia. Iranian diplomacy was reacting to a video released on Wednesday, in which the Ukrainian leader calls on the “Iranian people” to pressure his government to move away from “Russian terror” and stop delivering drones to carry out attacks on a large scale in Ukraine. After a series of nightly bombardments, Ukraine announced that it shot down nearly 60 Iranian-made Shahed drones during the nights of Thursday and Friday May 26.
“The repetition of false allegations by the Ukrainian president against the Iranian government and people” aims to “attract as much weapons and financial aid as possible from Western countries”, said the spokesman for Iranian diplomacy. Iranian drones “terrorizing Ukraine every night mean that the Iranian people are being pushed more and more into the dark side of history”, said the Ukrainian leader in a video subtitled in Persian, relayed on the networks social in Iran.
Tehran said it had supplied drones to Moscow, but assured that these deliveries had taken place before the offensive in Ukraine. “The Islamic Republic has always declared that it is opposed to the war in Ukraine,” repeated Nasser Kanani on Saturday.