Ukrainian forces attack Russian air defenses with missiles

Ukrainian forces have fired missiles that destroyed several Russian targets in the occupied Donetsk region, Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Tuesday. The midnight attacks targeted both Russian missile launchers and radar systems in the region in eastern Ukraine, Syrskyi said.

Ukrainian forces have launched dozens of missile strikes on Russian air defense systems across the region in recent days, Syrskyi said on social media. The missile strikes created favorable conditions for Ukrainian aircraft to launch attacks on other Russian targets, according to a translation of his statements.

Are Russian attacks on Ukraine still taking place? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that Russia had attacked Ukrainian targets with nearly a thousand guided bombs, drones and missiles over the past week. Zelensky called on Western countries to provide Ukraine with stronger defenses to stop the attacks.

What does Russia have to say? Russian state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday that Russian forces conducted successful military operations against Ukrainian forces in more than 120 locations the previous day. Russian forces repelled Ukrainian forces in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, TASS reported. In the process, Kremlin forces killed or wounded about 230 Ukrainian soldiers. Russian forces destroyed two Ukrainian ammunition depots near Dnipro in the central-eastern part of the country. Russian troops from the Kremlin’s western, central and southern battle groups inflicted hundreds of casualties on Kyiv’s forces each, TASS reported.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift last week about how Zelensky spent much of last week in Washington DC pleading with NATO member countries for help.