Ukraine repels Russian drone strike, but debris damages Odesa warehouse: Kyiv

KYIV – Ukraine shot down 14 attack drones and a cruise missile fired by Russia at its south and east overnight, but debris from a downed drone damaged a warehouse at the Black Sea port of Odesa, officials said on Monday.

Air defences brought down nine Iranian-made Shahed drones over the southern region of Odesa, which is home to Ukraine’s main Black Sea ports, and no one was reported injured, governor Oleh Kiper wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

There was no comment from Moscow, which denies targeting civilian infrastructure.

Russia has intensified attacks on Ukraine’s port and grain infrastructure since quitting a UN-brokered deal in July that had allowed Kyiv to ship its grain via the Black Sea.

Ukraine, a major grain producer, has been trying to establish a new shipping corridor to revive its exports across the Black Sea, traditionally its main route to global markets, despite a de facto Russian blockade.

The regions of Kherson in the south, Donetsk in the east and Sumy in the north-east were also targeted in the attack, the Interior Ministry said.

All 14 drones, including 13 Shaheds, and a cruise missile were shot down in the strike, the air force said, praising air defence systems supplied by the West.

“Western weapons have proven and continue to prove their effectiveness on the battlefield,” Lieutenant-General Mykola Oleshchuk, commander of the air force, wrote in a statement on Telegram.

Russia has carried out frequent air strikes across Ukrainian regions since launching its

full-scale invasion in February 2022

. Kyiv fears Russia is going to step up attacks on its power grid to cripple infrastructure as winter begins to set in.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said that Russian shelling hit a thermal power station in Donetsk region on Sunday evening. The Interior Ministry said there had been a large fire.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, reported one of its thermal power stations had been shelled by Russia but provided no further details. 

In its Sunday evening report, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Ukrainian forces repelled nearly 20 Russian attacks around the eastern city of Avdiivka, its buildings now largely reduced to shells.

Russian air strikes also hit nearby villages, it said.

Avdiivka has become a watchword for resistance, viewed as the gateway to recapturing the Russian-held city of Donetsk and the rest of Donbas – made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

It was briefly seized in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists captured swathes of eastern Ukraine.

But it was later retaken by Ukrainian forces which, in the ensuing nine years, have built solid fortifications.

“It is true that Avdiivka has significance,” Mr Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for the Ukraine Defence Ministry’s Intelligence Directorate, told Espreso TV news outlet.

“This is not the first instance the occupying forces have boosted tension with declarations of taking over all of Donetsk and Luhansk... Their plans have failed, the deadlines pushed back. This is just another episode of tension.” REUTERS