Kyiv: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Friday he views the performance of the air force in some parts of the country as “unsatisfactory” and that steps are being taken to improve the response to large-scale Russian drone barrages of civilian areas.
The repeated Russian aerial assaults have in recent months focused on Ukraine’s power grid, causing blackouts and disrupting the heating and water supply for families during a bitterly cold winter.
With the war about to enter its fifth year later this month following Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbour, there is no sign of a breakthrough in US-led peace efforts following the latest talks this week.
Further US-brokered meetings between Russian and Ukrainian delegations are planned “in the near future, likely in the United States,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy said he had discussed with his defence minister and the air force commander what new air defence measures Ukraine needs to counter the Russian barrages. He didn’t elaborate on what would be done. Russia fired 328 drones and seven missiles at Ukraine overnight and in the early morning, the air force said, claiming that air defences shot down 297 drones.
One person was killed and two others were injured in an overnight Russian attack using drones and powerful glide bombs on the central Dnipropetrovsk region, according to the head of the regional military administration, Oleksandr Hanzha.
A Russian aerial attack on the southern Zaporizhzhia region during early daylight hours injured eight people and damaged 18 apartment blocks, according to regional military administration head Ivan Fedorov.
A dog shelter in the regional capital was also struck, killing 13 dogs, Zaporizhzhia City Council Secretary Rehina Kharchenko said.