Russian forces launched the largest-ever attack on Ukraine overnight, deploying 267 Shahed-type attack drones, various decoy UAVs, and three Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles, the Ukrainian Air Force said on February 23.
Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said the night of February 22-23 had seen the highest number of Russian drone attacks since the beginning of Russia's all-out invasion on February 24, 2022
Writing on social media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it "the largest attack since Iranian drones began hitting Ukrainian cities and villages."
The Ukrainian military said it managed to shoot down 138 drones over multiple regions, including key cities and strategic locations such as Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Zhytomyr, Khmelnytskiy, Rivne, Mykolayiv, Odesa, and Dnipropetrovsk.
An additional 119 decoy drones reportedly lost signal without causing any confirmed damage.
Nevertheless, there were reports the attack caused significant damage and numerous casualties in several regions.
The exact number of casualties and the extent of the damage were still being assessed. Still, the toll on civilians was expected to be high.
According to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service, drone strikes caused fires and structural damage in three districts of Kyiv. A private house caught fire, while two houses sustained damage. In the Pechera district, an explosion shattered the windows of a nonresidential building.
In Kryviy Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region, Russian forces struck civilian infrastructure, killing one person and injuring five others. Emergency services reported that a 60-square-meter fire broke out following the attack. Rescuers pulled a man and a woman from the rubble, but the man later died in the hospital. Among the injured were four women and one man, with three still hospitalized, one in critical condition.
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Meanwhile, in Zaporizhzhya, a 53-year-old woman was injured and hospitalized following another Russian drone strike. The explosion caused a fire in a two-story residential building and a truck, with flames covering an area of 80 square meters. The blast wave and debris also damaged nearby houses.
Despite ample evidence, the Russian government denies targeting civilian infrastructure during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials and international organizations classify these strikes as war crimes, emphasizing they are not only deliberate but also indiscriminate, targeting residential areas, schools, hospitals, and essential infrastructure such as power grids and water supply facilities.