Mass drone barrage on Ukraine

Russia sent 219 drones at Ukraine overnight into April 18, and Ukrainian officials said one civilian was killed as air defenses tried to blunt the barrage. (ukrinform.net) Ukraine’s Air Force said it had shot down or suppressed 190 of the 219 drones by 8:30 a.m. on April 18, after launches began at 6 p.m. the previous evening. It said about 150 of the drones were Shahed-type attack drones. (ukrinform.net) The Air Force said 28 drones hit targets at 17 locations, and debris from downed drones fell at nine more sites. Officials said the strikes were repelled by aviation, missile units, electronic warfare teams, unmanned systems units, and mobile fire groups. (ukrinform.net) Regional officials reported at least 26 injuries across the country on April 18. Zaporizhzhia Oblast reported 10 wounded, Kharkiv Oblast seven, Kherson Oblast four, Donetsk Oblast four including the fatal strike in Mykolaivka, and Odesa Oblast one after hits on port and industrial infrastructure. (kyivindependent.com) The drone count matters because Russia has been sending larger and more frequent strike packages at Ukrainian cities and infrastructure in April. On April 15-16 alone, the Institute for the Study of War said Russia used more than 700 drones and missiles in one of the war’s biggest aerial assaults. (understandingwar.org) That pattern turns air defense into a numbers fight. The Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces have timed waves of drones and missiles to stretch Ukrainian defenses over longer periods and wear down interceptors before harder-to-stop strikes arrive. (understandingwar.org) Ukraine said the April 18 drones were launched from multiple sites in Russia — including Bryansk, Kursk, Oryol, Millerovo and Primorsko-Akhtarsk — as well as from Chauda in occupied Crimea. That spread lets Russia send drones along different routes and complicates interception. (ukrinform.net) The overnight exchange also ran both ways. The Associated Press reported that Ukrainian drones struck industrial areas in Novokuibyshevsk and Syzran in Russia’s Samara region, while Russia’s Defense Ministry said it had destroyed 258 Ukrainian drones over 16 Russian regions, Crimea, and the Black and Azov seas. (wtop.com) By Saturday morning, Ukraine’s Air Force was still warning that some enemy drones remained in Ukrainian airspace. The immediate result was familiar: a high interception rate, but enough drones getting through to kill, injure and damage infrastructure across several regions. (ukrinform.net)