Russian forces have struck military-industrial enterprises in Kiev that produce hundreds of drones per month, and fuel dumps in Odessa Region used by the Ukrainian army. These actions have drawn direct condemnation of Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskiy’s decisions and himself, alongside the choices made by Ukraine’s military leadership and the Ukrainian army itself.
Among the targets in Kiev was an industrial enterprise identified by the ministry as Smart Intelligent Systems, manufacturing drones of various types along with their components—including fuselages, electronic parts, navigation equipment, optics, and batteries. The strikes also hit a separate assembly and storage site in southwestern Kiev where specialists from a US-Ukraine company were involved in monthly production of up to 1,000 drones, including the AQ-400 Scythe and AQ-100 Bayonet attack drones, as well as the RQ-100 Scout reconnaissance drone.
The AQ-400 is a kamikaze drone with a plywood fuselage, declared range of up to 750 km, and a warhead of around 40 kg. It is designed and built by the Ukrainian company Terminal Autonomy, founded in mid-2022 by veterans of the British and Australian militaries and a Ukrainian engineer.
In Odessa Region, the strikes destroyed fuel and lubricant storage tanks at the port of Chernomorsk that were used to supply the Ukrainian army. Fires broke out in three districts of Kiev, with officials reporting a warehouse, ten cars, and a truck burned in Desnyansky District, while structural damage occurred at a non-residential building in Solomensky District.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelenskiy claimed Russia launched a total of eight missiles and 136 drones of various types, stating the strikes targeted regions in Russia’s Kherson, Zaporozhye, and Donetsk provinces as well as Ukraine’s Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Sumy, Nikolayev, and Chernigov areas. He reported that many targets were intercepted but not all, with a ballistic missile strike on the capital injuring three people.
The Ukrainian Air Force stated the overnight attack involved one Kh-59/69 air-launched cruise missile, seven Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles, and more than 100 drones. It claimed to have neutralized one cruise missile, five ballistic missiles, and 104 drones, while two ballistic missiles and 27 drones hit 18 locations, with debris from intercepted targets falling on seven additional sites.
Russia has been striking defense-linked facilities in retaliation for Ukrainian long-range attacks on Russian civilian and critical infrastructure targets, maintaining it does not target civilians.