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KYIV, Ukraine, 20 Jun (AP): \u2014 Ukrainian air defenses downed 32 of 35 Shahed exploding drones launched by Russia early Tuesday, most of them in the Kyiv region, officials said, in a bombardment that exposed gaps in the country\u2019s air protection after almost 16 months of war.<\/p>\n
Russian forces mostly targeted the region around the Ukrainian capital in a nighttime drone attack lasting around three hours, officials said, but Ukrainian air defenses in the area shot down about two dozen of them.<\/p>\n
The attack was part of a wider bombardment of Ukrainian regions that extended as far as the Lviv region in the west of the country, near Poland.<\/p>\n
The Shahed drones made it all the way to Lviv because of the inability of air defense assets to cover such a broad area, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said.<\/p>\n
Air defense systems are mostly dedicated to protecting major cities, key infrastructure facilities, including nuclear power plants, and the front line, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a general lack of air defense assets to cover a country like Ukraine with a dome like Israel has,\u201d he said, in a reference to Israel\u2019s Iron Dome aerial defense system.<\/p>\n
In the Lviv region, the Russian strike hit a critical infrastructure facility, starting a fire, according to Lviv Gov. Maksym Kozytskyi.<\/p>\n
Russia also struck the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine with ballistic missiles.<\/p>\n
Ukraine\u2019s air defenses have been reinforced with sophisticated weapons from its Western allies, allowing it a higher success rate recently against incoming drones and missiles.<\/p>\n
Previously, a winter bombardment by Russia damaged Ukraine\u2019s power supply, though speedy repairs blunted that Kremlin effort.<\/p>\n
The latest aerial assaults behind Ukraine\u2019s front line coincided with the early stages of a Ukrainian counteroffensive, as it aims to dislodge the Kremlin\u2019s forces from territory occupied since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in February 2022.<\/p>\n
The counteroffensive has come up against heavily mined terrain and reinforced defensive fortifications, according to Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of Ukraine\u2019s armed forces.<\/p>\n
Russia has also mustered a large number of reserves, he said in a post accompanying a video of him visiting front-line positions with other senior officers.<\/p>\n
Heavy battles are taking place in eastern Ukraine, around Bakhmut, Lyman, Avdiivka and Marinka, the Ukrainian armed forces said. Russia shelled 15 cities and villages in the eastern Donetsk region, wounding five civilians, including three in Chasiv Yar near Bakhmut, according to Ukraine\u2019s presidential office.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite the fierce resistance of the occupiers, our soldiers are doing everything possible to liberate Ukrainian territory. The operation continues as planned,\u201d Zaluzhnyi\u2019s post said.<\/p>\n
In other developments, Russia\u2019s Foreign Intelligence Service, known by its acronym SVR, invited Ukrainian diplomats stationed abroad to come to Russia with their families to avoid returning to Ukraine. It claimed many Ukrainian diplomats are unwilling to return home after their tours and want refugee status in the European Union and Asian countries where they worked.<\/p>\n
Also, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu alleged that Ukraine plans to use U.S.-made HIMARS and U.K.-provided Storm Shadow missiles to attack Russian territory, including the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula. He warned that using those missiles on targets outside the current war zone would \u201ctrigger immediate strikes on the decision-making centers on the territory of Ukraine.\u201d He didn\u2019t elaborate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KYIV, Ukraine, 20 Jun (AP): \u2014 Ukrainian air defenses downed 32 of 35 Shahed exploding drones launched by Russia early Tuesday, most of them in the Kyiv region, officials said, in a bombardment that exposed gaps in the country\u2019s air protection after almost 16 months of war. Russian forces mostly targeted the region around the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-218815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218815\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}