The urgent need for more air defenses in Ukraine is highlighted by the growing number of Russian drones, whose buzzing noises and explosions are shocking Kyiv’s residents.
People watch as Ukrainian firefighters work to put out a blaze in a high rise residential building in Kyiv on Oct. 25, 2020, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Oleksii Filippov / AFP via Getty Images).
One day in early November, as Russia launched a swarm of killer robots to attack Kyiv, one of them came dangerously near Petro, a 55 year-old resident of an apartment building in the center of Kyiv.
“I saw this motherf*cker maybe 200 meters above me, very low. I could see the shape and color. Petro told Kyiv Independent that it was black and triangular in shape, like a Shahed.
“Machine gunners tried to hit it from a tall building.” You could see red bullet traces… I heard a loud explosion a few seconds later,” he said.
He was describing the latest in an onslaught of Russian drone attacks that have rumbled infrastructure, towns and cities throughout Ukraine, including, as of late, the very center of the country’s capitol.
Petro, who is not revealing his last name due to the advisory role he plays in Ukraine’s war against Russia’s full scale invasion, now in its third anniversary, continued by saying: “A few weeks ago, I saw them both at the same time. They were a bit higher than they are now.”
The Shahed Kamikaze Drones to which he referred are designed and manufactured in Iran, a Russian ally in its war with Ukraine. Tehran has supplied them in large quantities to Moscow, and they account for most of Russia’s strike-drone capabilities. Russia also produces them locally.
“What surprises me, is that they are making it to the downtown area a lot more often now. Petro said that it was rare to see them earlier in the war but now they are flying so low almost every night.
He spoke to the Kyiv Independent a day after a Russian Drone crashed into the top of Jack House, an apartment building located in the central Pecherskyi District of Kyiv, sending a European Diplomat residing there as cover.
Margus Tsahna said that the Estonian Foreign Ministry, Margus, posted on the social media platform X, Nov. 8, “early yesterday the building where Estonian Ambassador Annely Kolk lived in Kyiv, was hit by a Russian Drone… She was fortunate not to have been harmed.”
“Nobody is safe in Ukraine until Russia ends its aggression.” Ukraine needs to increase its air defense in order to protect its citizens. We must not become accustomed to this,” he said.
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