Massive Russian Airborne Attacks across Ukraine Shed First Blood in Lviv

Russia launched in the past few days its largest series of airborne attacks against Ukraine from east to west, shedding blood for the first time in Western Ukraine’s metropolitan jewel Lviv, some 80 to 120 kilometers (50 to 75 miles) from the Polish border.

Moscow fired 53 ballistic and cruise missiles and some 600 drones, Ukraine’s Air Force said. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported that nine regions were targeted and tens of thousands have been left without electrical power at a time when the country is preparing for cold weather.

Moscow stepped up attacks specifically on Ukraine’s energy grid and gas production sites in recent weeks as the fourth winter of war approaches, and as diplomatic efforts to end the fighting have stalled due to Moscow’s stubbornness in fulfilling its manifest destiny to subjugating all of Ukraine. Outwardly, in meetings with European and American officials it feigns interest in peace. However, if fact, Russia is not interested in peace or an end to the war that it began in February 2022.

Ukrainian officials have urged its European and American allies to step up their comprehensive support for Ukraine.

Russia is clearly pursuing its age-old mission, enunciated unambiguously by the Kremlin’s leadership, of annihilating as many Ukrainian men, women and children as possible and then imprisoning the survivors in a renewed captive nation.

Local officials reported that four members of one family, including a 15-year-old girl, were killed by the Russian strike in the village of Lapaivka as attacks mostly targeted the Western Ukrainian region of Lviv. Another family member was injured, as were two neighbors, in the strike that killed their relatives in Lapaivka.

Lviv endured several hours of strikes, leading to the suspension of public transport services and the cutting of electrical supplies. Maksym Kozytskyi, Lviv’s regional head, said it was the largest attack on the region since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He said some 163 drones and missiles were identified in the area.

Ukraine’s neighbor Poland, concerned by the closeness of Russian airborne attack, scrambled fighter jets in order to ensure the safety of its airspace, the Polish military confirmed. “Polish and allied aircraft are operating in our airspace, while ground-based air defense and radar reconnaissance systems have been brought to the highest state of readiness,” Poland’s operational command said in a post on X. Allied NATO aircraft were also deployed. Russia’s Defense Ministry admitted it had successfully carried out a “massive” strike on Ukrainian military and infrastructure targets.

One person also died in Zaporizhzhia. Zelenskyy said Russia fired more than 50 missiles and around 500 attack drones. Ukraine’s air force put the combined figure at 549.

The Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa, and Kirovohrad regions were targeted as well as Lviv and Zaporizhzhia, according to Zelenskyy.

He added: “We need more protection and faster implementation of all defense agreements, especially on air defense, to deprive this aerial terror of any meaning.

“A unilateral ceasefire in the skies is possible and it is precisely that which could open the way to real diplomacy,” Zelenskyy observed.

Russian assaults came days after a US official said Washington would support Ukraine launching deep strikes inside Russian territory. The White House is considering dispatching to Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, an American long-range, all-weather, jet-powered, subsonic cruise missile that is used by the United States Navy, Royal Australian Navy and Royal Navy in ship and submarine-based land-attack operations.

At 05:10 (02:10 GMT), all of Ukraine was under air raid alerts following Ukrainian Air Force warnings of Russian missile and drone attacks.

Russia continues to focus its attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure as winter approaches.

Kyiv’s energy ministry said overnight attacks caused damage in Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv and Sumy.

In Zaporizhzhia, Russia’s overnight attack left “more than 73,000 consumers... without electricity” after a power plant was struck, according to Ivan Fedorov, the regional governor.

A woman was killed and several others injured in the region.

A 16-year-old girl was among those receiving medical assistance, Fedorov added, posting photos apparently showing a partly destroyed multi-story block and a burnt-out car from the site of the attack.

Emergency outages were implemented in Chernihiv and Sumy, the energy ministry added.

Russia’s drone incursions against several EU countries were well-calculated and an attempt to ‘move the red lines’, said Sergiy Kyslytsya, the former Ukrainian Ambassador to the United Nations and currently First Deputy Minister in charge of foreign affairs. 

Europe needs to “get serious” about the existential threat posed to it by Russia, Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister has said, warning that Vladimir Putin will “escalate escalating.”

In an interview with the Guardian, Kyslytsya, known for his acerbic criticism of Russian diplomats at the UN, said the Kremlin was already at war with Europe. He said Russia’s recent drone incursions against several EU countries were well-calculated and an attempt to “move the red lines.”

“I’m sure Putin gets emotional if not physical satisfaction humiliating the West by showing what he perceives as his super-strength,” Kyslytsya said, adding that the Russian despot’s reckless actions risked antagonizing a White House that appeared to be cooling on him. “It’s a boomerang thing,” Kyslytsya said.

What Russia does next depends on whether Europe and the Trump Administration show collective resolve, he suggested. Without a decisive transatlantic response, Putin would “escalate escalating,” he predicted, with more actions designed to disrupt and paralyze the continent.

Kyslystya is one of the Ukrainian government’s most effective communicators, known for his lively social media posts. He became something of a cult figure in Ukraine soon after Putin’s full-scale invasion when he ostentatiously read a book titled “What’s Wrong With Diplomacy?” as the Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, made a speech to the UN Security Council.

Russia launched its largest attack of the war against critical natural gas facilities run by Ukraine’s Ukraine’s state-owned Naftogaz group overnight, officials said on Friday.

Serhii Koretskyi, chief executive of Naftogaz, said Russia had fired 35 missiles and 60 drones at facilities of the gas and oil company in the Kharkiv and Poltava regions.

Koretskyi said the attack had “no military purpose” and was “yet another act of Russian malice aimed solely at disrupting the heating season and depriving Ukrainians of warmth in winter”.

Officials accused the Kremlin of plotting to wear down the Ukrainian power grid ahead of winter.

“Last night, the Russians committed a real act of genocide against the population of the Chernihiv region. During another drone attack, several important power supply facilities were damaged at once. Emergency power cuts affected about 50,000 users,” Chernihivoblenergo said, News.Az reports, citing Ukrainian media.

“The Russian side is testing our strength again, but we will stand firm! Energy workers are continuing to restore power, so please be patient and take care of your safety,” the regional power company added.

Earlier, over the past few days, Russians carried out massive attacks on 17 settlements in the Zaporizhzhia region, delivering more than 600 strikes with various types of weapons, according to Ivan Fedorov, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional military administration. Russians sent 390 drones of various modifications to the Zaporizhzhia region, carried out 6 MLRS strikes, and 202 artillery strikes.

Russia attacked the settlements of Hryhorivka, Malokaterynivka, Plavni, Stepove, Huliaipole, Shcherbaky, Novodanylivka, Mala Tokmachka, Novoandriivka, and Poltavka.

According to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russia carried out 17 air strikes on Hryhorivka, Malokaterynivka, Komyshuvakha, Stepnohirsk, Lukianivske, Novodanylivka, Novoandriivka, and Poltavka.

A total of 390 Russian drones, primarily of the FPV (First Person View) modification, had attacked the following locations: Tavriiske, Plavni, Stepove, Huliaipole, Shcherbaky, Novodanylivka, Mala Tokmachka, Novoandriivka, Charivne, Bilohiria, Rivnopillia, and Poltavka.

Russia launched a massive missile and drone strike against Ukraine’s energy facilities on Oct. 3, Zelenskyy said in his evening address, accusing Moscow of trying to deepen the hardship of civilians ahead of the cold season.

“Just today, Russia struck our gas infrastructure with 35 missiles, including ballistic weapons. It was a combined strike, and only half of the missiles were shot down,” he said after a meeting with Ukraine's top military command.

Zelensky said additional attacks also hit the Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts, while ballistic missiles struck energy facilities in Donetsk Oblast, including in Kramatorsk, Sloviansk and Druzhkivka.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones attacked the Azot chemical plant in Russia’s Perm Krai overnight on Oct. 3, regional Governor Dmitry Makhonin reported.

The strike briefly disrupted production at the facility, which is one of Russia’s largest nitrogen fertilizer producers and a key supplier of chemicals used in both agriculture and explosives.

Located about 1,700 kilometers (1,056 miles) from Ukrainian-controlled territory, the plant produces ammonia, urea, and ammonium nitrate, as well as higher aliphatic and crystalline sodium nitrite. In 2024, it reported record output of more than 2.3 million tons of products.

“According to updated information, an attack by enemy drones was carried out at night... There was a brief stoppage of the technological cycle at Azot,” Makhonin said. “Emergency services specialists continue to work at the scene, and an operational headquarters has been set up.”

Reuters previously reported that five Russian chemical companies supplied over 75% of the materials used by the country’s explosives and gunpowder factories since the start of the full-scale war.

Substantiating its intention to hurt unarmed civilians, at least 30 people have been injured following a Russian drone strike on a railway station in northeast Ukraine, Zelenskyy has said. In a post on X, he said that preliminary reports indicated train staff and passengers were at the site of the strike in the city of Shostka, in the Sumy region.

He also posted a video showing a damaged train carriage on fire.

“The Russians could not have been unaware that they were targeting civilians. This is terrorism, which the world has no right to ignore,” Zelensky wrote on X.

“Every day Russia takes people’s lives. And only strength can make them stop.”

According to the regional governor Oleh Hryhorov and the Ukrainian Railways body, there were two strikes which hit two passenger trains. Three children, aged 8, 11 and 14, were among the injured, Hryhorov said.

The second strike hit at a time when evacuations from the area were already under way, a statement from the railways body said.

It represented a “vile” attack “aimed at stopping communication with our frontline communities,” the statement continued. Shostka lies in north-eastern Ukraine, some 50km from the Russian border.

It is clear that Russia doesn’t want to end the war it started; it doesn’t want peace to return to Europe. Hopefully, the Trump Administration will pursue its new policy of disbelieving Putin’s comments while arming Ukraine with every weapon it needs to defeat Russia and expel it from all Ukrainian lands. He should also welcome Kyiv’s desire to join NATO and other defensive structures.