Ukrainian forces shot down 60 Russian attack drones overnight from Saturday to Sunday, the Ukrainian Air Force reported Sunday morning.
The drones were shot down above Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kyiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskyi and Donetsk.
A total of 94 drones were launched from bases in Millerovo, Oryol, Bryansk and Kursk, Russia. Falling debris damaged several residential houses in Kharkiv, Sumy and Poltava, but the Ukrainian Air Force reported no casualties.
These attacks follow large-scale attacks on the Donetsk front line on Saturday.
The small town of Bilytske was particularly affected. At least four explosions were heard in the city. The shelling damaged a gas station and at least two residential buildings nearby.
Russian territorial nibbling continues
Parked cars also caught fire following the strike. According to a spokeswoman for the Donetsk region emergency service, rescuers extinguished a fire at the site of the strike. Two houses, an administrative building, infrastructure and cars were damaged.
At least 132 people, including 12 children, were evacuated from Donetsk, Governor Vadym Filashkin said Sunday morning.
According to Filashkin, Russian troops shelled Donetsk settlements 20 times throughout the day on Saturday, killing one person in the village of Hryshyne, not far from Pokrovsk.
Saturday’s attacks damaged more than 60 houses in Donetsk, he added.
Russian troops continue to advance on the Eastern Front. Pokrovsk and Kurakhove remain the nerve centers of the Russian offensive in the east, which is in its fifth month.
On Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had captured two localities in the Donetsk region and the Kharkiv region.
The Russian military also claimed that the losses of the Ukrainian army in the frontline areas of Kharkov and Kursk during the week amounted to more than 2,835 people, 30 tanks and 122 armored fighting vehicles .
This war, which has lasted for almost three years, has had devastating consequences on the population of Ukraine.
Since February 2022, the country, which is facing an exodus and a drop in births, has lost 8 million inhabitants.
Today, there are only 35 million Ukrainians left in the country, compared to 45 million in 2014, the year Crimea was annexed by Russia.
