Police experts work near a crater at the site of hospital buildings damaged by a Russian missile strike as people watch, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine April 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

Russia launched a barrage of missiles against Ukraine overnight, in attacks that appeared to target the country’s energy infrastructure. Meanwhile, Russia said its air defense systems had intercepted more than 60 Ukrainian drones over the southern Krasnodar region.

Ukraine’s air force said April 27 that Russia had launched 34 missiles against Ukraine overnight, of which 21 had been shot down by Ukrainian air defenses.

In a post on Telegram, Minister of Energy Herman Halushchenko said energy facilities in Dnipropetrovsk in the south of the country and Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv in the west had been attacked and that an engineer was injured.

Private energy operator DTEK said four of its thermal power plants were damaged and that there were “casualties,” without going into detail.

Earlier this month Russia destroyed one of Ukraine’s largest power plants and damaged others in a massive missile and drone attack as it renewed its push to target Ukraine’s energy facilities.

Ukraine has appealed to its Western allies for more air defense systems to ward off such attacks. At a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group on April 26, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the U.S. will provide Ukraine with additional munitions and gear for its air defense launchers.

Further east, a psychiatric hospital was damaged and one person was wounded after Russia launched a missile attack overnight on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv. Photos from the scene showed a huge crater on the grounds of the facility and patients taking shelter in corridors. Regional governor Oleh Syniehubov said a 53-year-old woman was hurt.

Also in the Kharkiv region, a man was killed in an overnight attack on the city of Vovchansk, according to Ukraine’s State Service for Emegency Situations.

In Russia, the Defense Ministry said Russian air defense systems had intercepted 66 drones over the country’s southern Krasnodar region. Two more drones were shot down over the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.

The governor of the Krasnodar region, Veniamin Kondratyev, said that Ukrainian forces targeted an oil refinery and infrastructure facilities but that there were no casualties or serious damage. The regional department of the Emergency Situations Ministry reported that a fire broke out at the Slavyansk oil refinery in Slavyansk-on-Kuban during the attack.

Ukrainian officials normally decline to comment on attacks on Russian soil, but the Ukrainian Energy Ministry said April 27 that two oil refineries in the Krasnodar region had been hit by drones.

Five people were wounded in a drone attack in a border village in Russia’s Belgorod region, regional Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Police officers inspect a part of a Russian Kh-55 cruise missile, intercepted during a missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in a park in Kyiv, Ukraine, on March 24, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Poland demanded an explanation from Russia on March 24 after one of its missiles strayed briefly into Polish airspace during a massive missile attack on Ukraine, prompting the NATO member to activate F-16 fighter jets.

The incident came as Russia launched its third massive missile attack on Ukraine in the past four days, and the second to target the capital of Kyiv.

The head of Kyiv’s military administration, Serhiy Popko, said Russia used cruise missiles launched from Tu-95MS strategic bombers. An air alert in the capital lasted for more than two hours as rockets entered Kyiv in groups from the north.

He said the attacks were launched from the Engels district in the Saratov region of Russia.

According to preliminary data, there were no casualties or damage in the capital, he said.

Armed Forces Operational Command of Poland, a member of NATO, said in a statement that there was a violation of Polish airspace at 4:23 a.m. (0323GMT) by one of the cruise missiles launched by Russia against towns in western Ukraine.

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The object entered near Oserdów, a village in an agricultural region near the border with Ukraine, and stayed there for 39 seconds, the statement said.

Poland’s Defence Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz later told reporters in a televised news conference that the Russian missile would have been shot down had there been any indication that it was heading towards a target in Poland.

He said that Polish authorities monitored the attack on Ukraine and was in contact with Ukrainian counterparts. Polish and NATO F-16s were activated as part of the strategic response.

He said the missile penetrated Polish airspace about a kilometre or two (0.6 miles to 1.2 miles) as Russia was targeting the region around Lviv in western Ukraine.

“As last night’s rocket attack on Ukraine was one of the most intense since the beginning of the Russian aggression, all the strategic procedures were launched on time and the object was monitored until it left the Polish air space,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, the Polish Foreign Ministry said it would “demand explanations from the Russian Federation in connection with another violation of the country’s airspace.”

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“Above all, we call on the Russian Federation to stop the terrorist air attacks on the inhabitants and territory of Ukraine, end the war, and address the country’s internal problems,” the statement read.

Andrzej Szejna, a deputy Foreign Minister, told the TVN24 broadcaster that the Foreign Ministry intended to summon the Russian ambassador to Poland and hand him a protest note.

Henryk Zdyb, the head of the village of Oserdów, said in an interview with the daily Gazeta Wyborcza that he saw the missile, saying it produced a whistling sound.

“I saw a rapidly moving object in the sky. It was illuminated and flying quite low over the border with Ukraine,” he told the paper.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, there have been a number of intrusions into Polish airspace, triggering worry in the European Union member state and reminding people of how close the war is.

In 2022, two Poles were killed in a missile blast. Western officials blamed those deaths on a Ukrainian air defence missile that went astray but also accused Russia of culpability because it started the war, with the Ukrainian missiles launched in self-defence.

On March 23 night, one person was killed and four wounded in a Ukrainian missile attack on Sevastopol on the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula, city governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said on his Telegram channel.