As Russia continues drone strikes on Kyiv region, Volodin boasts of attacks' scale
Ukraine’s Kyiv region was once again attacked by “kamikaze” drones, a weapon procured by Russia from Iran, early Thursday morning, local officials reported. According to Deputy Head of the Ukrainian President's Office Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the attacks targeted critical infrastructure.
Later on Thursday, Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin posted an image on Telegram that purportedly shows all of the regions of Ukraine that Russia has shelled since the Crimean Bridge explosion on October 8. Under the image, Volodin wrote that strikes were launched on more than 70 energy targets throughout the country and that Ukraine lost 50 percent of its power generating capacity as a result (here's Ukraine's account of the damage). “If the terrorist attacks from the Kyiv regime continue, the response will be even more brutal,” he threatened.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, the National Resistance Center of Ukraine has reported that Russia has brought Iranian instructors to Crimea and Ukraine’s Kherson region to teach Russian troops how to use the Shahed 136 “kamikaze” drones being used to damage Ukrainian infrastructure, the BBC Russian Service reported on Thursday. The Iranian instructors have reportedly launched some of the strikes on civilian targets directly, including strikes in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv and Odesa regions.
The other shoe drops
Russian troops have shown a lack of regard for civilian lives — to put it mildly — since the very start of the war. In recent months, as fighting has begun to spill ever so slightly across the national border, some Russian residents have gotten a taste of how it feels to have one’s life upended by war — and it’s caused them to change their views.
