Ukraine’s military said Monday it thwarted Russian drone attacks in multiple parts of the country overnight, while Russian officials accused Ukrainian forces of carrying out a “vicious” attack in a Russia-controlled city in eastern Ukraine.
The Ukrainian air force said its air defenses downed all eight drones launched by Russia, including in the skies over the Mykolaiv, Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions.
In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ukraine used indiscriminate weapons and attacked civilian infrastructure during shelling Sunday on the city of Donestk that killed at least 27 people.
Peskov also said Monday that Russia is taking necessary measures after a suspected Ukrainian attack on a Baltic Sea fuel export terminal.
Ukraine’s military did not publicly comment on either attack.
Russian drone and missile attacks have repeatedly hit Ukrainian civilian sites throughout the war that Russia began nearly two years ago, killing thousands of Ukrainian civilians.The market strike was one of the deadliest on Russian-controlled Donetsk since Moscow attacked Ukraine in February 2022. Russia claims to have annexed the territory; a move condemned as illegal by most countries in the U.N. General Assembly.
Responding to media questions about the attack, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement Sunday that the secretary-general strongly condemns all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including the shelling of the city of Donetsk in Ukraine.
“Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international humanitarian law, are unacceptable and must stop immediately,” the statement said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not speak of the attack in his nightly address but said that in a single day, Russia had shelled more than 100 cities, towns and villages in nine Ukrainian regions and that the attacks in the Donetsk region had been the “most brutal.”
He also said, “Russia must feel and remember forever that the aggressor loses the most from aggression.”
The Ukrainian leader added that Russia will be held accountable for all this terror. “If it hadn’t been for Moscow’s decisions to start this aggression and this terror, thousands and thousands of people would be alive today,” he said.
Russia’s second-largest natural gas producer Novatek said Sunday it had to suspend some operations at a huge Baltic Sea fuel export terminal due to a fire started by what Ukrainian media said was a drone attack.
The giant Ust-Luga complex, located on the Gulf of Finland close to the border with Estonia and about 170 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, ships oil and gas products to international markets.
Yuri Zapalatsky, the head of Russia’s Kingisepp district where the port is based, said in a statement that there were no casualties, but that the area had been placed on high alert.
Some material for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.