Some 392 were launched Monday night into Tuesday, the Ukrainian Air Force said. More than 550 were launched at targets across the country in a rare and deadly daytime assault on Tuesday, the military said. And Russia launched another 147 drones overnight into Wednesday, striking more than a dozen locations, the air force added.
The large-scale attacks come as Russian forces have begun a spring offensive in eastern Ukraine, including the use of dozens of tanks and armored vehicles, the Ukrainian military and analysts told CNN earlier this week. The assault is gathering pace as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned about the consequences of the Middle East conflict for his country.
Tuesday’s drone attacks left at least 40 people in the country injured – including five children, Zelensky said.
At least two people in the western Ukrainian oblast of Ivano-Frankivsk were killed in an attack on a maternity hospital, the region’s governor Svitlana Onyshchuk said. The victims included a National Guard soldier and his 15-year-old daughter, according to Ivano-Frankivsk mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv. They were at the maternity ward visiting the soldier’s wife, who had given birth to a son just days earlier.
Four other people, including a 6-year-old, were injured. And in Vinnytsia, a 59-year-old man was killed while 11 others were injured, according to mayor Serhiy Morgunov.
“This was one of the largest attacks over the course of the day,” with drones directed towards central and western Ukraine, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ignat said.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, said in its latest analysis that “the Russian strikes on March 23 to 24 represent a significant inflection in Russian strike tactics that allow Russia to threaten more areas of Ukraine for longer periods of time and disproportionately affect civilian areas.”
In Lviv, at least 22 people were wounded in the attack, the city’s mayor Andriy Sadoviy said on Tuesday.
The air force said at least 15 hits were identified and at least 541 drones were shot down or neutralized.Residential buildings and city centers in the country were hit, including the maternity hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk that sustained damage, according to Ukrainian officials.
A church building in part of Lviv’s Bernadine Monastery Complex, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was also hit, according to Maksym Kozytskyi, head of Lviv region military administration.
“An architectural monument of national significance – the Bernardine Monastery Complex – has been damaged,” Kozytskyi posted to Telegram, adding that experts have yet to determine the extent of the damage.
“It is located within the historic district of Lviv, a site listed on the International List of Cultural Heritage Sites under enhanced protection,” Kozytskyi said. “The fire has engulfed the buildings adjacent to the complex.”
“The scale of this attack clearly shows that Russia has no real intention of ending this war,” Zelensky said in his nightly address.
“The geopolitical situation has become more complicated due to the war against Iran, and unfortunately, this is emboldening Russia,” Zelensky added in a statement on Tuesday. “Russia continues this war and its destabilization of Europe, supports the Iranian regime with intelligence, and thereby prolongs the war in that region, while also preparing for new conflicts in the coming years. This threat of constant war across the map must be stopped.”
Meanwhile in Russia, a 55-year-old man was killed and 13 others injured in Ukrainian drone attacks in the Kursk region, according to the acting governor, Alexander Khinshtein, on Tuesday.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said on Wednesday that Ukraine had launched 389 drones on Russia overnight.Meanwhile in eastern Ukraine, Russia is stepping up assaults.
“With changing weather conditions, the Russian aggressor has stepped up pressure across several sections of the front,” Ukrainian military chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said last week.
There are signs that Russian forces plan intensified ground operations against multiple parts of Ukraine’s so-called fortress belt, including the cities of Kramatorsk and Kostyantynivka, key defensive hubs for Ukraine, according to ISW.
Another focus of Russian attacks has been the town of Lyman in Donetsk, which is also at the edge of the fortress belt in the region.
Despite marginal gains in recent months across much of the battlefield, the Kremlin has continued to insist that the capture of the remainder of four eastern regions of Ukraine remains the goal of what it calls the Special Military Operation.
Ukrainian forces still hold about 20% of Donetsk and larger parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, according to analysts. Ukraine gained ground in the south last month.