The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv was set to celebrate its founding over 1,500 years ago when it was hit by a large-scale Russian drone attack. Just before dawn, on May 28th, dozens of drones descended on Kyiv, killing at least one while injuring three.
As reported by international news agencies, Kyiv’s mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said one man lost his life when wreckage from a drone, intercepted by Ukrainian air defense, fell near a petrol station.
The Ukrainian Air Force estimates that Russia had launched a record number of 54 of its Iran-made Shahed ‘kamikaze’ drones on Ukrainian targets, 52 of which it claims to have shot down.
Russia’s regional targets had been military and critical infrastructure facilities in central areas of Ukraine, the Kyiv vicinity in particular. It did not communicate how many of the drones were shot over Kyiv.
While direct drone attacks on the capital have been a frequent occurrence since the start of the war, Sunday’s attack was of a level not seen before. Its timing, according to Ukrainian officials, was not coincidental.
“The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians,” Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office, said on his Telegram channel.
Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said the attack came in several waves, and that air alerts rang out over a span of five hours.
“Today, the enemy decided to ‘congratulate’ the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles),” Popko said on Telegram.
The attack would mean diplomatic consequences for Iran, which Kyiv blames for having supplied Russia with the drones. On Twitter, Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, accused Tehran of having become “a key ally of Moscow in this war, deliberately supplying it with weapons for attacks on civilian cities.”
Last night’s attack on Kyiv was “another eloquent confirmation of this truth,” adding that, “in legal terms, Iran is doing this with direct intent and realizing the consequences of its actions. And there will definitely be consequences.”
The attacks come amid persistent rumors of a long-awaited Ukrainian counteroffensive aimed at recapturing territory.
A slickly produced video, meant to rally Ukraine and its allies, featuring voiceover work by General Valerii Zaluzhny, commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, strongly hinted that such a counteroffensive would materialize soon.
The minute-long production features Ukrainian troops marching, training, and apparently preparing for battle.
“The time has come to take back what is ours,” Zaluzhny is heard saying.
In other news, hawkish U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham managed to land himself in hot water with Moscow over comments made during a Friday visit to Kyiv.
In footage of a meeting between the senator and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the latter told Graham that “now we are free.”
To this, Graham responded, “and the Russians are dying,” smilingly adding, at least judging from the way the video had been edited: “It is the best money we have ever spent.”
The video had been released by the Ukrainian presidential press service. According to Reuters, the Ukrainian president’s office has not yet replied to a request for a full transcript of the meeting.
Russian officials did not wait for the full context to be revealed before responding. On Sunday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted by the Shot Telegram channel as saying that “it is difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators.”
On his Telegram channel, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev called Graham an “old fool.”
“The old fool Senator Lindsey Graham said that the U.S. has never spent money so successfully as on the murder of Russians. He shouldn’t have done that.”
Reuters reports that later on Sunday, the Ukrainian president’s office provided the full version of Graham’s and Zelenskiy’s remarks. At time of writing, it is however not accessible on the website itself.
According to the press agency, Graham’s remarks on U.S. assistance and Russian soldiers dying were not linked, as these were made in different parts of the conversation.
Graham had said that Ukrainians resisting the Russian invasion reminded him of “our better selves in America. There was a time in America that we were this way, fighting to the last person, we were going to be free or die.” The Ukrainian president then commented, “Yes, but they came to our territory. We are not fighting on their territory.”
In an emailed statement to Reuters, Graham hit back at the Russian “propaganda machine, which was ‘hard at work’.” In Graham’s version of events, he had mentioned to Zelensky “that Ukraine has adopted the American mantra, ‘Live Free or Die.’ It has been a good investment by the U.S. to help liberate Ukraine from Russian war criminals.”
On Sunday, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that the best investment the U.S. and the West could make was “in a complete and unconditional victory of Ukraine.”
