Ukraine fires 223 drones across Russia after Zelensky overhauls military's top brass

Ukraine hammered Russia with another long-range drone strike just days after President Volodymyr Zelensky fired his commander-in-chief.

Russia said it intercepted 223 drones as Ukraine continued its fight with a series of overnight attacks targeting multiple oil facilities and key pipeline infrastructure. The strikes came after Zelensky fired Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi as commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces on Tuesday and named his replacement, following days of mass protests in Kyiv.

Ukraine has already made significant progress in the war this year, but a rift between the country’s outgoing army chief and its defense minister threatened to derail its efforts. Both men lost their jobs following Zelensky’s major government reshuffle.

The new army chief, 43-year-old Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, belongs to a new generation of Ukrainian generals who have come up through the ranks during the battle against Russian aggression. He became known for his daring and courage in 2014, the year that Russia seized and illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula — eight years before Moscow’s all-out invasion.

On Thursday, Russian monitoring channels reported a series of explosions over Voronezh during the early hours, the Kyiv Post reports. “Voronezh is under a massive unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) attack. One of the likely targets could be the Wildberries logistics hub,” the Ukrainian monitoring Telegram channel Exilenova+ reported.

The Astra outlet noted it had not confirmed reports of a strike or fire at the Wildberries warehouse, which is located in the Novaya Usman district. Voronezh Governor Alexander Gusev confirmed that the overnight attack resulted in casualties and what he described as “serious consequences.”

“Dear Voronezh residents! Air defense forces repelled an enemy attack on civilian facilities throughout the night. Unfortunately, there are casualties and serious consequences. We will provide details after emergency services complete their work,” he wrote.

In a later update, the governor revealed that a three-year-old boy had been killed. He said air defense forces had shot down 36 UAVs overnight over Voronezh and six districts across the region.

“As a result of a UAV crashing in a suburb of Voronezh, a fire broke out in a private home, where, unfortunately, a three-year-old boy was killed. His parents sustained injuries of varying severity,” he wrote.

Gusev said that a 19-year-old man in the same municipality also suffered minor injuries, but did not require hospitalization.

“The roof of a marketplace warehouse and the façade of another warehouse were damaged. In addition, windows were shattered in nine private homes, while roofs and outbuildings were also damaged. Fifteen apartments in five residential buildings will require window replacement and utility repairs,” he said.

Astra also reported that the NS-Oil refinery in Russia’s Ulyanovsk region was attacked overnight. Residents reported explosions, and Governor Alexey Russkikh confirmed that a fuel and energy facility in the Novospassky district had come under attack, sparking a fire, the Kyiv Post reports.

Citing open-source intelligence analysis, Astra reported that the targeted facility was the NS-Oil refinery in Novospassky. The Exilenova+ Telegram channel also reported a strike on the Subkhankulovo Linear Production and Dispatching Station (LPDS) near Tuymazy in Russia’s Bashkortostan republic.

One of the oil storage tanks reportedly caught fire after at least eight impacts. The strike was confirmed by Serhiy Sternenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s former defense minister.

Russia’s defense ministry said that its air defenses intercepted and destroyed 223 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones between 8 p.m. on Wednesday and 8 a.m. on Thursday over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Rostov, Ryazan, Samara, Saratov, Tver, Tula, and Ulyanovsk regions, as well as over the Moscow region, occupied Crimea, Tatarstan, and the Sea of Azov.