KYIV, Ukraine — Russia conducted another missile bombardment of cities across Ukraine before dawn on Thursday, killing at least one person and hitting critical infrastructure, hours after a Several Russian balloons, which Ukrainian officials called a diversionary tactic, were spotted flying towards Kiev from the north.
This is the third time in the past week that the Ukrainian Air Force has discovered small rubber inflatable pneumatic air conditioners, as they are called in the military. The balloons were mostly shot out of the sky by the time Russian ships and bombers fired dozens of cruise missiles into central and western Ukraine.
The magnitude of the interaction between the rocket and the balloon was not immediately clear. But when Moscow’s forces Struggling to launch a new ground attackMissile attacks combined with the use of balloons show that Russia continues to seek to terrorize Ukraine from the air and deceive the country’s air defenses.
“The occupiers have somewhat changed their tactics,” said Andriy Yermak, a senior aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky.
While cheap airships are an old Russian tactic being repurposed, the Ukrainian military says the most serious threat remains the powerful missiles Moscow still has at hand. In Thursday’s attacks, a 79-year-old woman was killed, although the national power company said the attacks appeared to have minimal impact on Ukraine’s power grid.
For months, Russia has directed missile waves at critical infrastructure and other targets across Ukraine, aiming to crush the nation’s morale. As Ukraine’s Western allies sent more sophisticated air defense systems to help Kiev defend itself, Moscow turned to Iranian-made attack drones. Ukrainians have also adjusted, learning how to shoot drones in the sky without depleting more expensive anti-missile systems.
The balloons appear in the latest Russian adaptation, although there seems to be less mystery about them, due to the war, than around a Chinese bubble and other objects have been recently discovered drifting across North America.
Yuriy Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said that a Russian hot air balloon over Dnipro on Sunday was the first time such a device had been spotted in the year-long war.
“The enemy tries to taunt us, distract our attention and make us use air defense resources,” he said in an interview on Thursday. Every time Ukraine detects a balloon, he said, it has to decide if shooting it down poses a risk to those on the ground and is worth the ammunition.
The point, he said, is that balloons can be used for many purposes. They can carry radar reflectors used to knock out missile defenses, surveillance equipment to detect Ukrainian positions, even small bombs. They could also be used to try to reveal the location of Ukrainian air defense systems, military analysts say.
The ballooning over Ukraine comes as top government officials are intensifying warnings that Russia is preparing another large-scale missile attack to coincide with the anniversary of the all-out invasion. on 2/24.
“They are preparing and will try to make another attempt to launch a large-scale attack,” Oleksii Danilov, head of Ukraine’s defense council, said on national television. “We have to be calm about this, and moreover, we are ready for it.”
During Thursday’s attack, Ihnat said that Russia used a variety of missiles to strike Ukraine overnight, including giant Soviet missiles designed to carry nuclear warheads.
“We don’t have the resources to shoot them down and that’s why such missiles hit the target,” he said. “Several critical infrastructure was attacked,” he said, including an oil processing plant in Kremenchuk, central Ukraine.
Mr Zelensky, speaking before the Norwegian Parliament on Thursday, said that about half of the 36 missiles had penetrated Ukraine’s missile defenses.
Ihnat said the strikes underscore the need to improve the country’s air defense capabilities to be able to shoot down high-speed and ballistic missiles.
Anna Lukinova And Victoria Kim contribution report.
