Russia launches a major drone and missile strike on Ukraine, killing four people across the country. Ukraine strikes a hard-to-track Bastion missile system in Crimea. Zelenskyi meets Ukraine’s negotiators after the talks with the U.S. team in Florida.
Russia launches major drone and missile strike on Ukraine
Russia carried out a major drone and missile strike on Ukraine overnight on Tuesday, targeting energy facilities in several regions.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia had launched 426 missiles and drones at Ukraine overnight, including seven Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles, 18 Kh-101 air-launched cruise missiles, five Iskander-K cruise missiles, four Kh-59/69/31 air-launched missiles and 392 attack drones of the Shahed, Gerbera and Italmas types as well as other types of drones. Ukrainian forces shot down or otherwise neutralized 365 drones and 25 missiles, including all 18 Kh-101 cruise missiles, all five Iskander-K cruise missiles and two Kh-59/69 air-launched missiles, the Air Force said.
A Russian aerial strike on Zaporizhzhia damaged multi-story apartment buildings, killed one person and injured seven others, local authorities said. In Poltava region, two people were killed and 12 others were injured. Russia sent more than 40 Shaheds at the town of Shostka in Sumy region.
The attack left part of the consumers without power, including in the regions of Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv and Kherson. Energy teams are working to have the power supply restored, Ukraine’s Ministry of Energy said.
Russia launched a daytime drone attack on Ukraine on Tuesday morning, using more than 550 drones.
A Russian attack on the city of Dnipro injured at least nine people, including a one-and-a-half-year-old boy. The strike also damaged a 14-story apartment building and ignited a fire there, and eight multi-story apartment buildings and two kindergartens.
Four people were killed in a Russian strike across Ukraine on Monday. Eleven regions sustained damage.
Ukraine strikes hard-to-track Bastion missile system in Crimea
The Ukrainian military struck a number of key Russian military sites overnight on Tuesday, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said in a post to social media.
The targets that were hit included a missile launch system of the Bastion coastal defense missile system in the village of Aktachy in Crimea, troop concentrations in the town of Velyka Novosilka in the occupied part of Donetsk region and in the village of Khoroshe in the occupied part of Luhansk region.
Ukraine’s defense forces also struck a Russian equipment repair unit in the village of Zlatopil in the occupied part of Zaporizhzhia region and a drone control point in the town of Velyka Novosilka in the occupied part of Donetsk region.
In April 2024, Ukraine’s then-Vice Prime Minister for Innovations, Development of Education, Science and Technology — Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov said Ukraine was looking to locate the Bastion coastal defense missile systems in Crimea that Russia uses to launch strikes against ground targets across Ukraine. He appealed to local residents to send their reports via an anonymous chat site. He also said that the Bastion systems are based across the occupied peninsula.
According to Ukrainian news site Militarnyi, initially, the Bastion system was designed to engage surface ships of various classes and types of amphibious assault forces, convoys, and ship and aircraft carrier strike groups, as well as single ships and ground radio-contrast targets in conditions of intense fire and electronic warfare.
The system can also launch Onyx anti-ship missiles that Russia has been extensively using against Ukrainian ground targets since the invasion.
The Bastion missile system is quite mobile: after the march, the deployment time from the field to the combat state is five minutes, Militarnyi explains. The reverse process takes about the same amount of time. In other words, the system arrives at the point determined by the combat mission, quickly fires, and leaves. It is extremely difficult to hit such a target.
An upgrade allowed the Bastion to also launch Zircon missiles at targets in Ukraine.
Zelenskyi meets Ukraine negotiators after talks with U.S. team in Florida
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi said Tuesday he had heard reports of Ukraine’s negotiation team after its talks with U.S. negotiators in Florida over the weekend.
“We had a detailed discussion on the outcomes of the meetings in the United States. It is telling that while our negotiators were reporting, Russia launched a new wave of “Shahed” drones against Ukraine.
“The team reported on what was actually discussed in Florida — the key points, opportunities, and challenges. The most important task is to develop security guarantees in a way that brings us closer to ending the war. Security is the key to peace,” Zelenskyi said in a post to X on Tuesday.
He also said that the “geopolitical situation has become more complicated due to the war against Iran, and unfortunately, this is emboldening Russia.” The fundamental circumstances have not changed, he said. “Russia continues this war and its destabilization of Europe, supports the Iranian regime with intelligence, and thereby prolongs the war in that region, while also preparing for new conflicts in the coming years. This threat of constant war across the map must be stopped.”
Meetings of the leaders are needed to move things forward, he added.
“I have instructed the team to continue working as actively as possible with partners so that diplomacy is substantive and that, in particular, humanitarian issues such as prisoner exchanges are resolved. I also instructed the team to brief our European and Canadian partners about the meetings in Florida,” Zelenskyi said.
