The Defense Ministry in Moscow has confirmed a large-scale raid on oil facilities and military-related targets
The Ukrainian capital and several other cities across the country were hit by a combined drone and missile strike early on Thursday morning, in what the Russian Defense Ministry called a response to terrorist attacks by Vladimir Zelensky’s government.
The first wave of blasts in Kiev was heard around 2 AM local time, followed by more explosions in multiple waves until 4 AM. Mayor Vitaly Klitschko urged residents to seek shelter as the capital’s air defenses engaged incoming targets.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the strike, with “high-precision long-range weapons,” targeted “military industry enterprises and facilities and the fuel and energy facilities in the city of Kiev and the Kiev region, as well as military airfields and other infrastructure in Dnepropetrovsk, Poltava, Cherkasy, and Chernigov regions.”
The Russian military later released a detailed list of targets. Among them was a plant producing guidance systems for Ukrainian drones and missiles, a factory producing long-range drones and loitering munitions, a plant involved in upgrading Ukrainian armor and producing military optics, an electronic warfare equipment producer, a drone parts depot, a fuel depot, and several gas facilities that the statement said provided energy supplies for weapons manufacturing.
Videos shared on social media show numerous blasts and fires in and around the Ukrainian capital. Officials in Kiev reported damage at at least 28 locations, claiming that most of them were “residential buildings and civilian infrastructure.”
The head of the local military administration, Timur Tkachenko, said two people were killed and another 16 were injured. Klitschko later updated the death toll to 13.
The exact locations and types of facilities hit are difficult to verify, as the Ukrainian authorities tightly restrict information about strike sites and penalize those who share footage of impacts, except when civilian infrastructure is affected.
Moscow has pledged to conduct “systematic and consistent strikes” on Ukraine’s military installations, drone manufacturing sites, command posts, and “decision-making centers” in retaliation for deadly “terrorist attacks.”
In recent weeks, Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone raids deep into Russian territory, often hitting residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. On Tuesday, a six-month-old baby was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in Moscow Region. Last week, 12 people were injured in a strike on a WWII museum in Rostov Region.
Last month, Kiev launched one of its largest drone attacks on Moscow, hitting an oil refinery in the capital and injuring 17 people, including two children.
Russia maintains that it only targets military and dual-use installations in response to Ukraine’s indiscriminate “terrorist attacks.”
Kiev routinely accuses Russia of deliberately hitting civilian sites, but has a long history of using civilian installations, including warehouses, public buildings, and agricultural and industrial facilities for military purposes.
Ukrainian media recently exposed a drone plant at a film studio hit by Russia. Over the course of the conflict, Kiev has taken considerable steps to decentralize its weapons production chain, creating small-scale assembly sites that mainly produce FPV and fixed-wing long-range drones from components supplied from abroad.
