The Russian military launched two ballistic missiles, one cruise missile, a glide bomb and 26 drones at Kyiv overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Tuesday, adding that it had intercepted 28 incoming objects.
Air raid warnings were issued for much of Ukraine overnight, with Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne reporting explosions in the Khmelnytskyi and partially occupied Kherson regions, and in the western city of Ternopil.
The Russian Defence Ministry said that two drones had been shot down over the annexed Crimean Peninsula overnight, while Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote that the town of Shebekino near the region’s border with Ukraine had come under fire again. The neighbouring Kursk region was also placed on high alert overnight, according to acting Kursk Governor Alexey Smirnov.
One of the pontoon bridges across the Seym River installed by the Russian military after the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) destroyed all three river crossings in the Kursk region reportedly disappeared from satellite images on Monday. Radio Svoboda, the Ukrainian affiliate of US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, reported that smoke was visible at the site. A second pontoon bridge east of the village of Glushkovo was still visible in satellite images on Tuesday, however.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the Kursk incursion would not have been necessary had Kyiv’s allies not imposed restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Western-donated weapons against Russian military targets.
“But for now, we cannot use all the weapons at our disposal and eliminate Russian terrorists where they are,” Zelensky said in a statement on Monday, adding that the Ukrainian military currently controls 92 settlements and over 1,250 square kilometres of the Kursk region.
Russian state-owned news agency TASS reported on Tuesday that 17 people had died since the start of the AFU offensive in the Kursk region and another 140 people had been injured.