U.S. expedites air defense to Ukraine

KYIV (AFP) — Washington promised Thursday to prioritize shipments of air-defense missiles to Ukraine after Russian bombardments forced mass blackouts and prompted the country’s president to call for solar panels on hospitals and schools.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters Thursday that the United States would prioritize deliveries of anti-air missiles to Kyiv, ahead of other countries that have placed orders.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly urged Ukraine’s allies to send more air-defense systems to protect the country’s vital infrastructure.

Zelensky said in a message on X he was “deeply grateful” for the US move.

Romania on Thursday also said it would send a Patriot missile system to Ukraine. Zelensky hailed it as “a truly powerful step” for regional security.

In the latest overnight strikes, “the enemy attacked a number of energy infrastructure facilities,” the energy ministry said, adding that they had targeted four regions, including near Kyiv.

The Ukrainian energy ministry said seven employees at energy facilities had been wounded overall and more than 200,000 people had power temporarily cut off in the Vinnytsia region.

Russia’s defense ministry said it carried out “precision” strikes on energy facilities that support military production, as a response to Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian oil facilities.

Refineries strikes

Ukraine said on Friday it had launched drone attacks on several oil refineries and military centers in southern Russia, which Moscow said killed one person.

Kyiv has carried out several attacks on Russian oil refineries in recent months, arguing they are fair targets given that they fuel Moscow’s military.

Kyiv’s army said it launched the drones against “the Afipskiy, Ilskiy, Krasnodar and Astrakhan oil refineries” and a radio and intelligence center in the southern Russia.

It also said it targeted a drone preparation and storage area in Krasnodar, which resulted in a “series of explosions and a fire with subsequent detonation.”

The defense ministry in Moscow said: “Russian anti-aerial defense systems intercepted and destroyed 70 drones over Crimea and the Black Sea, 43 drones over the Krasnodar region and one drone over Volgograd.”

In Krasnodar, one person was killed in a drone attack near Yuzhny train station, local governor Venyamin Kondratyev said on Telegram.

Russia said it had neutralized 114 drones.

the governor of the Krasnodar region — near Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula —announced that one woman had been killed in a drone attack targeting oil facilities.

Holding the line

The Ukrainian military said Russian forces were trying to dislodge its troops from the nearby villages of Shumy and New York.

Ukraine has said is dispatching reinforcements to an embattled strategic hilltop town in the eastern Donetsk region, a vital flashpoint whose capture could accelerate Russian advances deeper in the industrial territory.

Donetsk has borne the brunt of fighting since Russian forces invaded in February 2022, and Ukrainian forces are struggling to hold the line there against better-resourced Russian forces.

“Units of the 24th Mechanized Brigade have been redeployed to strengthen the defense of the Chasiv Yar sector,” the grouping said in a statement late Thursday.

“The situation in and around the town is extremely difficult. The enemy is constantly organizing massive frontal assaults, and also trying to bypass the settlement from the north and south,” it added.