Russia sends ballistic missiles and 258 drones; Ukraine says it stopped 233

Russia attacked Ukraine overnight into Thursday with ballistic missiles, two Oniks anti-ship missiles fired from occupied Crimea, and 258 strike drones. Ukraine’s Air Force said it shot down or jammed 233 of those objects: seven Iskander-M or KN-23 ballistic missiles, one Oniks, three S8000 Banderol drones and 222 unmanned aircraft of mixed types. The rest got through.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the targets were ports, grain stores, energy sites, industry and other infrastructure. Russia’s defence ministry named steelworks in Kryvyi Rih and Zaporizhzhia, an oil refinery in Poltava region, logistics centres around Kyiv and three ports in Odesa region. Explosions continued in the capital after dawn as commuters walked under air-defence fire against jet-powered drones. Three people were reported wounded in the first accounts. A gymnasium in Shevchenkivskyi district was badly damaged. Windows blew out of a clinic. Debris fell in Podilskyi and Pecherskyi courtyards and near Dynamo Stadium.

A second wave in daylight

From 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. the Air Force counted about 140 more strike drones, more than 100 of them jet-powered, most of them pointed at Kyiv. About 120 were destroyed. More than ten jet drones were still in the air at 7 p.m. Six Russian drones crossed into Moldova. President Maia Sandu called it intimidation.

The barrage came a day after CIA Director John Ratcliffe left Moscow and after Ukraine resumed strikes inside Russia. The pattern is now familiar: a night of missiles, a morning of Shaheds, a list of downed objects that still leaves ports and steel plants on fire. Thursday added Moldova to the map the debris can reach.