As Moscow and Kyiv Trade Drone Attacks, Kremlin Alarmed at Latest Strike on Occupied Kherson

Hours after Russia launched a drone attack on Ukraine, hitting energy facilities and railway infrastructure in the Poltava and Sumy regions, and a day after invading forces launched another massive overnight drone attack on civilian targets, killing five people, including a teenager, Moscow pointed the finger at Ukrainian forces for a strike in occupied Kherson late on Tuesday, reportedly killing four people.

The Kremlin-installed regional governor of Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, said Tuesday that Kyiv’s retaliatory strikes on occupied territory there included 209 intercepted drones and killed civilians in a vehicle.

Meanwhile, the region’s elected Ukrainian local authorities accused Russia of killing a man in the city of Kherson, which is controlled by Kyiv.

“A 65-year-old resident of Kherson came under enemy fire. He sustained fatal injuries,” the Kherson region governor, Oleksandr Prokudin, said on Telegram.

Russia’s recent attacks on Ukraine’s energy and oil infrastructure, which has happened every fall since the start of Moscow’s unprovoked invasion in February 2022, have succeeded in their aims to leave millions of residents without heating and power for months in the cold weather.

These included Russian strikes on the power grid on Christmas Day, 2024.

Ukraine said Russia had launched 154 drones and missiles overnight Monday and into Tuesday, around half of which were intercepted, AFP reported.

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Kyiv said an unmanned aircraft hit railway and energy infrastructure in the Poltava and Sumy regions early on Tuesday, leaving more than 1,000 people without electricity.  

The day before, according to Russian sources, Ukraine had launched 251 drones towards Russia, and two people died in a rocket strike on the city of Belgorod around 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the international border.

“One thousand people in four settlements remain without electricity,” Belgorod’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed.