KYIV, May 8 (AP): Ukraine air defences shot down 35 Iranian-made drones over Kyiv in Russia’s latest nighttime assault, as attacks across Ukraine by the Kremlin’s forces killed four civilians, officials said on Monday.
The bombardments came as Moscow enforced tight security on the eve of traditional Red Square commemorations marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.
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Russian media counted at least 21 Russian cities that cancelled military parades — the staple of Victory Day celebrations across Russia — on May 9 for the first time in years. Regional officials cited “security concerns” or vaguely referred to “the current situation.”
Parades will go ahead in Russia’s largest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg. But the use of drones has been banned in both cities ahead of Victory Day.
In St. Petersburg, which is often referred to as “northern Venice” for its network of rivers and canals, using jet skis in certain parts of the city has also been prohibited until May 10.
In the Russian capital, car sharing services have been temporarily barred from the city centre — drivers will not be able to start or finish rides there.
Five people in the capital were injured by falling drone debris, according to Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration. Air raid alarms sounded for more than three hours during the night.
Drone wreckage struck a two-story apartment building in Kyiv’s western Svyatoshynskyi district, while other debris struck a car parked nearby, setting it on fire, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post.
Facing economic sanctions and limits on its supply chains due to its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russia has routinely turned to Iranian Shahed drones to bolster its firepower.
Russian shelling of 127 targets across northern, southern and eastern parts of Ukraine killed three civilians, the Ukrainian defense ministry said.
The Kremlin’s forces used tanks, drones, mortars, warplanes, multiple rocket launchers and surface-to-air missiles to bombard Ukraine, the report said.
Russian long-range bombers launched up to eight cruise missiles at Ukraine’s southern Odesa region, authorities said. One person was killed and three wounded.
Some of the Soviet-era cruise missiles fired against the Odesa region self-destructed or fell into the sea before reaching their targets, according to Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuri Ihnat.
In addition, six Russian rockets also struck the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk during the night, a regional official reported on Monday.
The missiles targeted the city’s industrial zone and caused no casualties, Donetsk regional governor Petro Kyrylenko said in a Telegram post.
May 9 is normally a bank holiday in Ukraine, too, but not this year, because of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday he had sent a draft bill to parliament proposing a Day of Remembrance and Victory over Nazism in World War II on May 8 and a Day of Europe on May 9, further distancing Kyiv from Moscow.
Zelenskyy equated Russia’s goals in Ukraine to those of the Nazis.
“Unfortunately, evil has returned,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram. “Although now it is another aggressor, the goal is the same — enslavement or destruction.”
Meanwhile, Russian-installed authorities have begun evacuating residents of Tokmak, a town in the front-line southern Zaporizhzhia region, toward the Black Sea coast, Ukraine’s General Staff said.
Those working for Kremlin-appointed local authorities, as well as children and educational workers, are being relocated to Berdyansk, a Russian-occupied seaside city some 100 kilometers southeast, it said.
The report came just days after Yevhen Balitsky, the Russian-appointed governor of the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region, ordered the evacuation of civilians from 18 settlements there on Friday, including Enerhodar which neighbours the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Speculation has been mounting for months about the timing and focus of Ukraine’s expected spring offensive, with some analysts saying Kyiv might try to strike south into Zaporizhzhia in order to split Russian forces and cut Moscow’s land link to occupied Crimea.
