22 injured as Russia launches 499 drones, missiles at Ukraine

UPI

3 hours ago

Russia mounted a huge airborne attack on Ukraine for the fifth night in a row, launching 499 drones and missiles at targets across the country that injured at least 22 people. Photo by Sergey Kozlov/EPA-EFE
June 9 (UPI) -- Russia launched 499 drones and ballistic and cruise missiles against seven provinces across Ukraine, of which the Ukrainian Air Force claimed to have downed all but 22.
At least 22 people were injured in provinces from the frontline regions of Sumy and Kharkiv in the east, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south and Rivne in the northwest, which Gov. Oleksandr Koval said had sustained the heaviest bombardment since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022.
"According to preliminary information, one civilian was injured. Huge gratitude for the professionalism of our air defense forces, which destroyed a large number of enemy targets," Koval wrote in a post on X.
Kyiv and the surrounding area also came under sustained attack with air raid warnings sounding for more than 10 hours, but no casualties were reported.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Russian forces launched 479 attack and decoy drones from multiple directions, four ballistic missiles, 11 cruise missiles and five air-launched cruise and anti-radar missiles from above the Black Sea.
The air force said its fighter aircraft, air defense and electronic warfare units and mobile fire groups were able to destroy or otherwise "neutralize" 460 of the drones and all but three of the missiles, two of which never made it to their targets.
However, some made it through with explosions heard in at least 10 locations and debris from downed projectiles falling in 17 places.
Most of the cruise missiles came from Russia's Saratov region, where air bases have twice sustained attacks from Ukrainian UAV assaults in the past week.
Ukrainian special forces claimed another strike overnight on an airfield deep inside Russian territory in Nizhny Novgorod region, 260 miles east of Moscow, damaging two fighter jets on the ground.
"According to preliminary information, two units of enemy aircraft were hit (probably MiG-31 and Su-30/34 aircraft). The results of the combat operation are being clarified," said the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
The Guardian said Savasleyka airfield was home to MiG-31K warplanes used to deploy air-to-surface ballistic missiles of a type that have been used to attack Ukrainian cities and Ukrainian forces.
Footage was also circulating online of a drone strike even further afield in Cheboksary in the Chuvashia Republic on an industrial facility producing guidance systems parts used in motorized howitzers, short-range ballistic missiles and both loitering and attack drones.
Regional Gov. Oleg Nikolayev, issued a statement confirming production at the VNIIR Progress factory had been paused but that there had been no injuries.
The plant is under U.S., European Union and British sanctions targeting military industrial facilities and Russia's ability to evade Western efforts to target its war machine. The operating company was sanctioned by the United States in 2023, followed by the EU and Britain in 2024.