Russian Drones Pound Kiev, Ukraine Intensifies Provocations

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On the night of April 9-10, 2025, Russia and Ukraine conducted extensive strikes. While the Russian military is targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure, logistics hubs, and troop concentrations, the Armed Forces of Ukraine continue damaging Russian energy infrastructure. The attacks demonstrated the evolving nature of the war, where drone swarms and precision strikes are increasingly shaping the battlefield while civilian infrastructure continues to bear the brunt of the fighting.

According to the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russian forces launched one of their largest drone offensives in recent weeks, deploying over 140 Geran-type loitering munitions from multiple launch sites across Russian territory, including the Crimean peninsula. The waves of drones, accompanied by decoy aircraft, targeted regions across northern, central and southern Ukraine, overwhelming Ukrainian air defenses. Ukrainian forces reported allegedly intercepting the majority of the incoming drones, 85 UAVs, while decoy drones reportedly disappeared inflicting no damage; but the Ukrainian military is forced to confirm that several drones penetrated air defenses, striking targets in the capital region and multiple other areas.

The attacks were carried out according to the already familiar Russian pattern of exhausting the Ukrainian air defense with intense attacks, while at the same time revealing weaknesses in the protective umbrella.

Russian forces conducted precision strikes against Ukrainian military facilities, inflicting heavy damage to the industrial facilities deep behind the front lines. Over the past day, massive Russian drone and missile strikes were recorded in the Donbass, Sumy, Kharkiv, Zaporozhie, Kherson, Kiev, Odessa, Cherkassy, Dnepropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Vinnitsa, Zhytomir, Khmelnitsky, Poltava regions. 

Fires in Kiev:

The Kiev region, including the capital city, came under massive attack. A series of Russian strikes were recorded in Kiev, Brovary, Bila Tserkva and Borispil. The local sources confirmed that one of the targets was the strategic logistics hub of Ukraine’s National Guard located on the western bank of the Dnieper River on the southern outskirts of Kiev. Large fires destroyed valuable equipment, mobile command posts and specialized diving gear used by naval sabotage units.

Precision drone strikes heavily damaged the facilities of the faculty of training of aviation personnel in the city of Mykolaiv. The Ukrainian military had been using the targeted facilities to train operators of first-person-view drones – weapons that have become increasingly important in the ongoing battles in Ukraine.

At least four Russian drones struck the facilities of the dairy plant in Chuguev in the Kharkiv region. The plant was used as the repair base by the 3rd separate assault brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Ukrainian military positions are constantly pounded by devastating Russian strikes.

A machine-building plant in Kramatorsk that was housing fighters of Ukraine’s 12th special forces brigade, suffered direct strikes of Russian kamikaze drones that destroyed armored vehicles and specialized engineering equipment.

More Ukrainian hideout were revealed and destroyed in the residential area in Kramatorsk. A military repair base was destroyed in the tram depot in Druzhkovka. Another repair base with NATO vehicles was destroyed in the residential area in Slavyansk.

Another civilian building used by the Ukrainian special services for temporary accommodation of SBU officers and foreign instructors, who were operating under the cover of humanitarian missions, was completely destroyed by a precision drone strike.

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In their turn, Ukrainian forces continued attacks on Russian energy infrastructure, despite the temporary ceasefire agreed by Moscow and Washington. Ukrainian drones penetrated Russian airspace across a wide arc from Bryansk to Crimea, with several reaching the Moscow region before being intercepted.

The Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation reported the destruction of 42 Ukrainian drones in the following regions:

• 13 UAVs in the Bryansk region
• 12 UAVs in the Kaluga region
• 7 UAVs in the Kursk region
• 4 UAVs in the Belgorod region
• 4 UAVs in Crimea
• 1 UAV in the Oryol region
• 1 UAV in the Moscow region.

Together with drone strikes deep in the Russian rear regions, the Ukrainian military continues provocations, increasing attacks on Russian energy facilities.

Over the past day, 11 attacks were recorded in the LPR, DPR, Zaporozhie, Kherson, Kursk, Bryansk, Belgorod, Krasnodar regions.

The strikes caused localized blackouts in multiple regions, including at industrial facilities in Luhansk where a major ferroalloy plant lost power. In the border regions, the attacks disrupted electricity to thousands of civilians while damaging critical energy infrastructure that Russia relies on for domestic stability.

Russia appears to be refining its combination of mass drone attacks with precision strikes on military targets, seeking to degrade Ukraine’s defensive capabilities while limiting its own losses. Ukrainian forces, meanwhile, continue to demonstrate their ability to strike deep into Russian territory despite increasingly robust air defenses, maintaining pressure on Russia’s energy sector as both a tactical and psychological weapon. The persistent attacks on energy infrastructure point to a strategy of making the civilian population share the war’s burdens.

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