KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired at least 800 drones in a massive daytime barrage on about 20 regions of Ukraine on Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, including children, in one of the longest attacks by Moscow in the 4-year-old war, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
The attack began in midmorning and lasted for hours in the capital of Kyiv, the western city of Lviv near Poland, and the port of Odesa on the Black Sea, among other population centers, Zelanskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Our soldiers are defending Ukraine, but Russia’s obvious goal is to overload air defenses,” Zelenskyy said, as the bombardment stretched into the late afternoon. He cautioned that a cruise and ballistic missile attack could follow the drone barrage.
It was “one of the longest, massive Russian attacks against Ukraine,” he said on social media.
It also rattled neighbors. Hungarian Prime Minister Péter Magyar said his new government has summoned the Russian ambassador over a drone attack near Hungary’s border, in a significant shift from his predecessor Viktor Orbán's friendly relations with Moscow.
“The Hungarian government strongly condemns the Russian attack on Transcarpathia,” Magyar told journalists, adding that Foreign Minister Anita Orbán will speak with the ambassador Thursday morning.
The foreign minister will ask “when Russia and Vladimir Putin plan to finally end this bloody war,” Magyar added.
“Thank you for your compassion and strong position!” Zelenskyy said on X after Magyar’s comments.
Three people are killed in a region near Kyiv
Drone debris fell in an open area in Kyiv’s Obolonskyi district with no casualties, city officials said, as air defense systems engaged Russian drones over the capital. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said emergency services responded to the scene. Explosions were heard across the city earlier Wednesday.
Source: WPLG
