Russia escalated its war against Ukraine on Sunday by launching 45 drones over nine different regions, including the outskirts of Kyiv. The drones, which were Iranian-made Shahed models, were shot down by the Ukrainian air force, but not before causing damage and killing up to 7 people.
According to the Ukrainian military, the drones targeted agricultural facilities and coastal infrastructure, such as grain silos, power plants, bridges, and ports. The attack lasted for five and a half hours, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. local time.
Officials said that one person was injured in the Mykolaiv region, where a drone strike sparked a fire and damaged nearby residential buildings. Another person was injured in the Dnipropetrovsk region due to falling debris from a destroyed drone.
The drone attack came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy continued to reshuffle his war cabinet, appointing new commanders for the ground, air, naval, and territorial defense forces.
The new military chief, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, who replaced Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi on Thursday, said that his immediate goals included “improving troop rotation at the front lines and harnessing the power of new technology at a time when Kyiv’s forces are largely on the defensive.”
The drone attack also revealed that Russia was using Starlink terminals, a satellite internet service provided by Elon Musk’s company SpaceX, to aid its offensive. Ukraine’s military intelligence service released a recording of an intercepted conversation between two Russian soldiers as proof.
Starlink terminals have been vital in giving Ukraine’s military an edge over invading Russian troops, as they provide high-speed communications in remote areas. However, multiple reports of Russian troops using Starlink on the front line in occupied Ukraine had begun to surface in the Ukrainian media in recent weeks.
SpaceX denied that it did business with the Russian government or its military, and said that it was investigating the matter.
The drone attack was the latest escalation in the war that has killed more than 10,000 people and displaced more than 2 million since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, following a failed coup attempt by pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine.
