Russia Launches Record Number of Aerial Ordnance against all of Ukraine

Moscow intensified it attacks against Ukraine with all the fury in its arsenals today, March 24, as it launched some 1,000 drones, missiles and other aerial ordnance across Ukraine in 24 hours, destroying civilian homes and transport, wounding scores and killing some dozen Ukrainians in their homes. It was the largest Russian strike series against Ukraine of the war thus far.

The scale of the attack threatened peace and tranquility in Poland as Polish jets scrambled to monitor flight patterns of Russian drones and missiles that in the past were known to stray across the border into Poland.

The Internet was filled with dramatic videos of the Russian airborne attacks as ordnance after ordnance hit civilian targets. One frequently posted clip showed a Shahed flying over the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, located some 70-80 miles from the Polish border. The drone hit targets including a UNESCO World Heritage site in Lviv. The 17th century St Andrew’s Church, part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, is more than 400 years old.

More than 550 of the drones were launched at targets across the country in a rare and deadly daytime assault, the military said. So far, the attacks left at least 40 people in the country injured including five children, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian officials condemned Tuesday’s attack on the bustling downtown district of Lviv and called on the international community to react. “Russia brutally struck the center of Lviv, a city of exceptional cultural value and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. I urge the UNESCO Director General to immediately respond to this crime in the strongest terms,” commented Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha. “Russia is doing exactly what the Iranian regime is doing in the Middle East, but in the middle of Europe.”

The latest Russian attack should have also lain to rest illusions about Moscow’s desire to reach peace and end the war.

“Iranian Shaheds, modernized by Russia, are striking the church in Lviv – this is an absolute perversion, and only someone like Putin could take pleasure in it,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. “The scale of this attack clearly shows that Russia has no real intention of ending this war.”

The morning strikes followed a large-scale missile and drone attack on multiple Ukrainian cities through Monday night, which killed at least five people and injured 16 others.

The explosions were reported from the cities of Poltava and Zaporizhzhia shortly before 3 AM.

Meanwhile, Poland scrambled fighter planes and allied aircraft to respond to the Russian strikes, though it later confirmed that “no violations of the country’s airspace were observed.”

At least two people in the western Ukrainian oblast of Ivano-Frankivsk have been killed, the region’s governor Svitlana Onyshchuk said. The victims included a National Guard soldier and his 15-year-old daughter, according to Ivano-Frankivsk mayor Ruslan Martsinkiv. They were at a hospital maternity ward visiting the soldier’s wife who had given birth to a son just days prior.

Four others, including a 6-year-old, were injured. And in Vinnytsia, a 59-year-old man was killed while 11 others were injured, according to Mayor Serhiy Morhunov.

“This was one of the largest attacks over the course of the day,” with drones directed towards central and western Ukraine, Ukrainian air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said.

In Lviv, at least 22 people were wounded in the attack, the city’s mayor Andriy Sadoviy said.

The air force said at least 15 hits were identified and at least 541 drones were shot down or neutralized.

Residential buildings and city centers in the country were hit, including a maternity hospital in Ivano-Frankivsk that sustained damage, according to Ukrainian officials.

Meanwhile in Russia, a 55-year-old man was killed and 13 others injured in Ukrainian drone attacks in the Kursk region, according to Acting Governor Alexander Khinshtein.

Ukrainian officials reported that Russian strikes overnight and during the day damaged civilian, energy, and transport infrastructure in Chernihiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Ivano-Frankivsk, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Vinnytsia, and Zaporizhzhia oblasts.

As of March 24, Kharkiv has been undergoing intense, consecutive Russian aerial assaults, including daytime and overnight drone/missile strikes that have hit residential areas and caused multiple casualties. The attacks, often involving glide bombs and missiles, are heavily damaging civilian infrastructure. Fighting continues in the northern Kharkiv Oblast, while students utilize underground schools. 

Russia has targeted Kharkiv with sustained drone and missile attacks, part of a broader wave affecting 11 regions. Attacks have resulted in at least 10 deaths and dozens of injuries, including children, with significant damage reported in residential and commercial areas. Intense fighting continues near Kharkiv city, specifically around Vovchansk, Starytsya, and other border areas. Due to persistent danger, about 20,000 children are attending school in underground classrooms for safety. 

A Russian drone struck a commuter train in Kharkiv Oblast, killing a passenger who, according to preliminary information, refused to evacuate, Ukrainian Railways (Ukrzaliznytsia) said on March 24. Targeting passenger trains is the latest target of choice for Russians. The strike came amid intensified Russian attacks on Ukraine's railway infrastructure since July 2025. As Russia targets passenger trains, Ukrainian Railways implemented additional security measures on January 28, including stopping trains and evacuating passengers if there is a threat of a train being hit.

According to Ukrainian Railways, the train that was attacked on March 24 was traveling between the regional capital of Kharkiv and Slatyne, a rural settlement located 13 kilometers (eight miles) from the Russian border

“Russia’s decision to bomb a heritage site in the middle of a major Ukrainian city in broad daylight was a signal of intent that points unmistakably toward a coming escalation. Putin is clearly struggling to defeat Ukraine on the battlefield, but he remains committed to extinguishing Ukrainian statehood and is prepared to ruthlessly target the civilian population in order to break the current deadlock and force the country’s surrender,” observed Peter Dickinson, editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.

Russian forces intensified operations across multiple fronts in Ukraine, carrying out 619 assaults within four days, Ukraine's Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Facebook on March 23.

The statement follows remarks by President Zelenskyy, who said in mid-March that Ukrainian forces had repelled a large-scale Russian offensive planned since late 2025 and set for early March.

Russian troops attempted to breach Ukrainian defenses across several sectors of the front line between March 17 and 20, Syrskyi said.

Russian forces launched an offensive involving “tens of thousands of soldiers” and, after four days of fighting, lost 6,090 troops killed or wounded, with a total of 8,710 infantry losses over the past week, Syrskyi added.

Most Russian assaults took place in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the Pokrovsk sector in Donetsk Oblast and the Oleksandrivka sector at the intersection of Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk oblasts.

According to the commander-in-chief, Russian forces attacked Ukrainian positions near Pokrovsk 163 times and near Oleksandrivka 96 times over the past four days.

As for the illusory peace talks, Ukraine and US still need to develop the security guarantees, Zelenskyy told journalists. Security guarantees were one of the topics discussed over the weekend between Kyiv and Washington's representatives at a meeting in Florida.

Kyiv wants iron-clad promises from the US and other allies to come to its aid should Russia attack again after the end of the war.

Ukraine-Russia peace talks are stalled with no real progress, according to President Zelenskyy, following reports from negotiators returning from the US Russia is currently escalating its spring offensive with massive aerial attacks and shows no genuine interest in diplomacy. The talks are on a “situational pause” due to the conflict in Iran. 

“The most important task is to develop security guarantees in a way that brings us closer to ending the war,” Zelenskyy wrote on social media after meeting with his negotiating team.

Zelenskyy had said in January that the security guarantees document between Ukraine and the US was “100% ready” and waiting to be signed.

“The geopolitical situation has become more complicated due to the war against Iran, and unfortunately, this is emboldening Russia,” he said on Tuesday.