Russia marked Orthodox Easter on Sunday with a drone attack across much of Ukraine, hours after President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Kyiv’s forces had shot down another Russian fighter jet.
Kremlin troops launched 24 Shahed-type UAVs over the southern region of Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk in central Ukraine, and the northeastern Kharkiv region overnight.
Ukraine’s air defense shot down 23 of drones, its command said on Telegram. State Emergency Services said on X, formerly Twitter, that residential buildings were hit in the city of Kharkiv, injuring five people including a child.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a residential house and several infrastructure objects in the city of Dnipro were struck by drone debris, without casualties, local governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram.
In his nightly video address on Saturday, Zelensky said Ukraine’s 110th Separate Mechanized Brigade had downed a Russian Su-25 fighter plane in the Donetsk region earlier in the day, offering no additional details.
Ukraine’s armed forces estimate that 349 Russian aircraft and 325 helicopters have been lost since Vladimir Putin’s troops invaded in February 2022. The figures can’t be independently verified.
The nation stays united in prayer “for warriors, for those who protect Ukraine, for all civilians who work every day to make the country strong and efficient in overcoming evil forces,” Zelensky said.
Kremlin ground troops continue to press their advantage in eastern Ukraine while Kyiv’s forces await the arrival of new US military aid.
“Russian forces made a notable tactical advance northwest of Avdiivka, near Arkhanhelske” in the Donetsk region on Friday night into Saturday, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.
“Ukrainian forces may have decided to trade space for time as they wait for the arrival of US aid to the front line at scale in the coming weeks – an appropriate decision for an under-resourced force at risk of being outflanked,” ISW analysts said in a situational update late Saturday.
The Ukrainian map service DeepState confirmed that Russian troops had reached administrative borders of Ocheretyne.
The town lays near by the “Pokrovsk- Kostyantynivka” road, which has become a vital route for Ukrainian Army supplies. It’s about 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the town of Pokrovsk, which Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov recently named as one of Russia’s chief offensive goals.