That Saturday morning, Kiev suffered the largest bombardment of Shahed drone bombs in the entire war. 75 of these Iranian-made unmanned aircraft were fired by Russia in more than five hours of alert. The Ukrainian Air Force shot down 71 of these drones, causing five injuries in the capital. Authorities see the attack as a signal for a new bombing campaign to disrupt vital winter energy supplies. Air Force spokesman Yuri Ihnat announced in a televised statement that the drones used by Russia were improved versions of the models originally supplied by Iran. Ihnat stated that the devices are now covered with a layer of carbon fiber, a material that makes them difficult to detect by radar. In addition, the new Shaheds are painted black for night operation, in contrast to their previous gray color, making them less visible.
The vast majority of Shaheds have targeted Kiev, although five other provinces have also fallen victim to drone bombings. The alarm in the capital began shortly after three in the morning, but it was not until five that the fire reached its greatest intensity. Between five and eight thirty, the city was affected by constant explosions of anti-aircraft machine guns, also by the characteristic noise of the Shahed engine flying over the center of Kiev.
The five injured people were hit by drone debris over the city area. Kiev Mayor Vitalii Klitschko has confirmed that the victim was a minor under the age of 11. A daycare center was also destroyed in the attack.
Russia had significantly reduced its bombing attacks away from the war front since June. Both the Ukrainian government and NATO intelligence agencies believe that Moscow is reserving long-range munitions to carry out a campaign to disrupt the energy system, as happened in 2022. Between October last year and January 2023, Russian air forces regularly attacked the entire Ukrainian territory, with the power grid as the main target. For months, millions of Ukrainians lived in large cities with constant outages in heating, electricity and hot water supplies.
The British Ministry of Defense announced on November 21 that the Kremlin was preparing for its winter campaign: “Russia has refrained from firing its main cruise missiles from its bomber fleet in recent months, possibly in order to build up a large arsenal.” The possible reason for this is that they can be used if they decide to repeat last year’s attempt to destroy critical Ukrainian infrastructure.
The attack on Kiev followed the same parameters as a smaller wave on November 18, in which the Shahed fired from Russian territory to the north and east, as well as from the south. The Ukrainian Air Force informs the population about the arrival of a threat from a certain area through military accounts on social networks. Based on this information, the special envoy of EL PAÍS was able to follow for hours the choreography created by the light sources and anti-aircraft munitions depending on the origin of each new wave of drones.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has stressed that the bombing coincided with the annual commemoration of the Holodomor, the famine ordered by Stalin in the 1930s that caused the deaths of millions of rural Ukrainians. Ukraine views the Holodomor as an attempted genocide by the Soviet authorities, although famines also occurred in other parts of the Soviet Union. “Russian leaders seem to be proud of their ability to kill people,” Zelensky wrote on his social networks.
The vast majority of the Shahed were shot down, but Russia, as the Ukrainian Air Force has already stated on previous occasions, is not primarily trying to destroy ground targets with these devices: the main logic of the Shahed waves is to determine the location of the Defense. and consume the anti-aircraft ammunition. Thanks to arms deliveries from its NATO allies, Kiev is one of the cities with the best anti-aircraft defense in the world. The German government confirmed this week that the new military aid package for Ukraine worth 1.3 billion euros includes four batteries of Iris-T anti-aircraft missiles, the best anti-aircraft system Ukraine has besides missiles. American Patriot.
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